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 9th wicket partnerships
average 53.4 and the 10th 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 1st 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 3rd or 4th 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 2nd.
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