Bob Willis Trophy, Round 4 Somerset v Gloucestershire

 

Bob Willis Trophy, Round 4

Somerset v Gloucestershire

22/08/2020

 

Day 1

Both sides need the win to retain some interest in the competition. For Gloucestershire, defeat would confirm exit from the competition. For Somerset, there would be an if and a but, however, their imperious need is to take more points from this round that Worcestershire to control their fate in the last round (in which they face the Pears).

The big problem that sides have had time and time again playing Somerset, this season, is to get Somerset into apparent serious difficulties, only to discover a huge sting in their tail.

·        In the first round, Warwickshire had Somerset 226-8 and were fighting their way back into the match: Somerset declared on 413-9 when the ninth wicket fell.

·         Against Northants, 114-9 became 166ao and a match-winning first innings lead.

·         Against Glamorgan, 149-8 and 189-9 became 296ao.

So, when the Shire had Somerset 176-9 they should have known better than to think that that Somerset were in a deep cowpat.

This season, Somerset’s 9^th wicket partnerships average 53.4 and the 10^th averages 65.5: no other partnership averages even 35.

Up to then, things had gone pretty well. David Payne, Ryan Higgins and Josh Shaw had gone through the top order pretty comfortably. The Cidermen were 89-5 and looked like a man after his second glass of scrumpy: a bit wobbly. Bartlett and Craig Overton set about a recovery and had added 75, leaving the Shire’s faithful (there are still a few, I believe) to think “here we go again”.

As a literary lot, they were probably thinking about the symbolism of “The Agony and the Ecstasy” as applied to West Country cricket. There has been a fair bit of the former and not so much of the latter in the last few decades. At 164-5, with Bartlett and Overton accelerating, the former was growing. 28 balls later, Ryan Higgins had two wickets, Sid Payne had two and you felt safe in switching to the latter. After all, there is a reason why Jack Brooks calls himself “Brooksy Ferret” on social media, not that there are many rabbits in the Somerset tail to come in after.

Eleven overs of mayhem. 61 added. Massive momentum shift. You almost thought that it was a strategic move by Jack Brooks to get out as soon as Bartlett had got his century to make sure that the bowlers would get a few overs in at the Gloucestershire openers before the Close. Not even Jack Brooks though would have expected to be deep into the middle order come the Close.

Suffice it to say that Chris Dent is currently top-scorer with 5 and that Matt Taylor came in as the SECOND nightwatchman to see off the best part of 5 overs. From 9-4 after 7.2 overs, 13-4 after 12 at the Close seemed like riches.

Gloucestershire’s first order of business in Day 2 is to add the 25 more runs needed to avoid the Follow-On. It is not a given that they will do it.

Tom Lace, this is your moment. The Shire needs you to show why you were rated so highly by the Lord’s faithful.

 

Day 2:

There are days when it is a relief to be in a mountain region where I barely have Internet and certainly cannot post match reports with the occasional and intermittent signal that apears. Today has been one of them.

If the Shire thought that things could only get better after Day 1, they were rapidly disabused of so presumptuous a notion. There were two, brief moments when it looked as if it could be a contest: for the first half hour, Matt Taylor, the second nightwatchman hung around and the score approached the Follow-On mark. Once he fell, it was a procession, mostly of defeatist shots until, finally, Ryan Higgins, who was hanging-on, became the final wicket. If Gloucestershire needed a reminder of the step-up in class required in 2021, this was it. It was that pre-season friendly all over again but, on this occasion, possibly even more one-sided.

76ao was a new season low for the Shire and, as some doom-mongers stated gleefully, one of their lowest-ever scores against Somerset. Suffice it to say that the partnership of 20 between Tom Lace and Matt Taylor is Gloucestershire’s highest of the match so far and that only Lace, Taylor and Higgins reached double-figures. It was pretty grim.

Somerset batted again, reportedly searching for a target well over 400, which would require “batting well into Day 3”. In fact, they were able to declare more than half an hour before the Close, leaving 8 overs at the batsmen, after setting 385 to win, to which Gloucestershire have responded with 14-3. Momentarily the Somerset juggernaut had been stopped by Sid Payne getting Byrom with the final ball of his second over to leave the Cidermen 12-1 but, from there, it was one way traffic as Lammonby and Tom Abell both registered 101* to trigger the declaration.

To have any hope of survival, the Shire needed a century from the Captain and a lot of help from the weather, but Chris Dent’s match contributions have been 5 & 4 and, of rain, nary a sign. After his excellent start against Worcestershire, Chris Dent is yet to reach double figures and, when he falls quickly, the rest of the batting seems to lose heart. After Somerset had scored at will on a pitch that seemed to carry no threat, suddenly the bowling looked a completely different matter and the pitch, a pit of vipers.

The match will do well to get to Lunch on the third day. Let’s face it, we have been awful, but it has been a learning experience and we now know how much we have to do to survive in Division 1 in 2021.

 

Day 3:

The good news: Ryan Higgins scored 21, to match Tom Lace’s top score from the 1^st innings.

The bad news: only Graeme van Buuren, with 15, of the rest of the batting, got into double figures.

The embarrassing news: The Shire may escape with a totally undeserved draw if Storm Francis does wipe out all cricket around the country on the last day of the match, as is predicted.

In the 24 overs possible due to rain and bad light, Gloucestershire have gone from 14-3 to 63-8 and have been utterly humiliated. The match will produce a mass of new records for Gloucestershire, we are informed, all of them showing what a huge job it will be to survive next season. It has illustrated the gulf between the cricketing haves and the have-nots and the huge step-up between Division 2 and Division 1 for a side of modest resources and squad depth.

If we did not realise what a task awaits the Shire in 2021, we do now. Somerset have been consistently the strongest side in the Championship over the last decade and more so since Durham’s disproportionate punishment, but a side hoping to justify its existence – and the survival of the six “have nots” is again under threat from the ECB’s plans to dismantle County cricket as we know it – it needs to be able to compete at this level, even if ultimately defeated: the Shire have not done that.

 

Day 4:

Would Storm Francis save the Shire from defeat, even if it could not save them from humiliation in the match?

A gloomy (if you are a Gloster, looking for a miracle) look at the forecast suggested that the weather would clear from the West and that play would be possible at some point in the afternoon. And so it was. The whole sorry spectacle was mercifully brief. Play was possible after Lunch and not even the threat of more rain arriving from the west was sufficient to inconvenience Somerset to any degree; in fact, it just concentrated their minds further.

The Shire were bundled out for 70. Craig Overton and Jack Brooks took the last two wickets in around fifteen minutes of play. The last four wickets had gone down for the addition of nine runs in 40 balls: it was as complete a capitulation as a side could desire to impose on its local rivals.

The Somerset attack was relentless and, when the opening bowlers were rested, the intensity remained as high as ever. This is the biggest single difference that sides find between Division 1 and Division 2 cricket.

What it means:

Somerset took 20 points from the game. With Worcestershire only managing a high-scoring draw, Somerset will top the group if they draw with the Pears, taking 2 bonus points in the process. Worcestershire need either a win, or a draw in which they score 400 with the loss of no more than 5 wickets in 110 overs and then limit Somerset to under 200 in their first innings. In other words: it is almost impossible for them to top the group without the win.

Gloucestershire are in a four-way struggle for the wooden spoon in the Central Group. The Northamptonshire win over Glamorgan and Warwickshire draw with Worcestershire move both of them above Gloucestershire, with just 11 points between third and last in the Group.

A Gloucestershire win at Nevile Road in the final round would guarantee that they finish 3^rd or 4^th in the Group: a respectable result. Defeat would leave the Shire depending on Glamorgan losing too to avoid finishing bottom of the Group.

Currently, Somerset and Derbyshire would qualify for the Final, with Essex needing to better the Derbyshire points haul in the last game to overtake them. However, the South Group is still wide open, as Middlesex play Essex in the last round and could top the group themselves with a win or, with a draw, allow Kent to slip through in top place. It would be very difficult though for either Kent or Middlesex to reach the Final: Middlesex can only reach 83 points, which is unlikely to be enough. There is no combination of results in South Group that would allow Hampshire to qualify, even with a win against Kent in their final game, although they could finish 2^nd.