Gloucestershire v Somerset, County Championship Group 2, Bristol, May 20th to 23rd 2021, Day Four, Somerset 300-8 declared (Abell 132*, Gregory 57) Gloucestershire 27-6 (Overton 4-16). Match Drawn
It was fitting that the last ball of the game resulted in Craig Overton taking a wicket bowling Ian Cockbain off an inside edge to pick up Somerset’s second bowling point. But before Miles Hammond could get to the crease the rain returned and, around midday, that was it for this game.
That Overton wicket fell in a spell of only 9 balls which the teams had squeezed in after an earlier interruption and for many came as a complete surprise as the rain that forced the first break seemed at the time to be pretty terminal.
Polly Rhodes, Somerset’s scorer tweeted her summary of the day’s play “5.2-2-11-4. No boundaries. 6 scoring shots. Craig Overton 2.2-1.4-3, Josh Davey 3-1-7-1”. Let’s just think about that for a moment. If we extrapolate that to a normal 32 over session Somerset would have bowled Gloucestershire out twice for 66, with a few overs to spare before the interval!
The shame is that perhaps even another session and a half across the four days would have been enough for Somerset to wrap up an innings victory. From a nadir of 176-7 on Saturday afternoon Somerset asserted their superiority with a display of complete dominance. If you think back to the Bob Willis Trophy game at Taunton late last August when Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for under 100 there were a lot of similarities.
So the question has to be asked what was different at Taunton earlier this season? The obvious answer is James Bracey but it goes beyond that. Somerset were superior in all departments in this game to that performance and Gloucestershire nowhere near their previous levels. In my mind this was a reversion to the norm, the far better team dominating their weaker opponents, a clearly motivated side smarting from an under-performance at Taunton.
The group 2 table now shows Gloucestershire just a point ahead but with a game in hand with Hampshire 10 points adrift of Somerset having played the same number of games as Tom Abell’s side. The division one places seem almost certain to be decided amongst those three as Surrey would need to win all their remaining four games to force their way into contention. They do however still have to play all three of the teams above them starting with Gloucestershire next week.
Hampshire are also without a game in the next ground so attention will already be turning to Taunton on 3rdJune in what looks like a huge game. Somerset will be at the significant disadvantage of being without Craig Overton and Jack Leach who will by then be in the England side. Hampshire have no such international calls. To counterbalance that the Cooper associates County Ground will have supporters present for the first time since September 2019 and that will, I am sure, go some way toward making up for the absences.
But that is 10 days away and despite the frustrations of the rain-affected draw there are so many positives to take. Tom Abell has delivered an innings of style, maturity and importance and should have elevated himself to the fringes of the England squad. Craig Overton continues to terrorise county batting and Josh Davey just keeps being quietly effective. And Gloucestershire have been eft with some pretty severe mental scars.
I’ve said that I expect Gloucestershire to fall away, believing they have over-performed so far this season and they will be anxiously looking over their shoulder now. How ironic it would be if Somerset do them a huge favour by putting a dent in Hampshire’s aspirations in two weeks’ time?
