Warwickshire197 for 9 (Hain 54) trail Somerset 458 (Renshaw 129, Abell 70, Banton 57, Lammonby 56, Hannon-Dalby 5-89) by 261 runs
Somerset’s players, you see, are more than names on shirts and have always been so. Before a match or on a training day you might see them strolling into town on an errand. The club’s business connections are more likely to be made with local companies than multi-national airlines. Even the ground sponsors, Cooper Associates, are based just across the way in James Street.
On the excellent live stream this morning they mentioned the 85th birthday of Terry Barwell, who played 44 first-class matches for the county, almost all of them in the sixties, when a team featuring Bill Alley, Mervyn Kitchen and other solid citizens more than held its own in an age that suddenly seems almost medieval in its remoteness. In those summers Somerset’s players had to take care not to get splinters in their feet from the old pavilion’s wooden floor.
Which is not to say that Somerset’s current cricket is in want of eccentricity. They still take the long route to most winning posts, something in evidence this morning when they lost four wickets lickety-split. Andrew Caddick, a player from a later generation than Barwell and Kitchen but whose strike rate was often impressive on this ground, arrived in the press box and watched three wickets fall in four balls, all of them bowled.
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Someday, a statistician, probably Andrew Samson, will work out the impact of last-wicket stands on openers. Somerset’s eighth wicket fell at 11.40, at which time Alex Davies and Dominic Sibley probably began their mental preparations for beginning Warwickshire’s innings. But it was another hour before the ninth wicket fell and a further 30 minutes before Brooks’ cheery assault was ended. Then we had lunch and so it was not until 1.50 that Davies and Sibley marched out with their pads on.
Too much can be made of such relatively simple analyses. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” some of you may be saying, and wisely, too. Warwickshire’s loss of four wickets inside the first 20 overs of their innings owed more to the bravery and excellence of Somerset’s bowlers than the top order’s mental fragility. Brooks tested Davies with a couple of short ones and was hooked; he pitched it up and had his man caught at slip by Overton. Four overs later Davey replaced Brooks and had Sibley leg before in his first over, although the batter perhaps thought the ball was tailing down leg. Rob Yates followed ten minutes later when he inside-edged Davey onto his pad and Overton swooped from third slip.
This was turning into one of those unexpectedly glorious afternoons for Somerset supporters and their delight was deepened when Will Rhodes’ ugly and barely describable aborted pull off Gregory shovelled a catch to Lammonby to mid-on. All the dismissed batsmen had hit boundaries but Abell posted at least two slips all afternoon and Matt Lamb nicked a catch to the second of them, Matt Renshaw. Michael Burgess replaced him and someone noted that the Warwickshire keeper had made 348 runs in his two innings this season. Another fair point but a bowler’s target is his opponent in pads rather than his statistics or his reputation. Burgess nicked Overton to Steve Davies and Warwickshire took tea on 92 for 6.
Paul Edwards is a freelance cricket writer. He has written for the Times, ESPNcricinfo, Wisden, Southport Visiter and other publications
Source: ESPN Crickinfo