A season that 10 days ago had promise of a treble now lies in tatters.
Somerset’s humiliating 2 day defeat in Scarborough, completely outplayed by a decent but not special Yorkshire side showed that the lessons from last week had not been learned.
The basic details of the match do not make good reading for anyone from the south-west. Harry Brook on his own made only 16 less in his first innings than the entire Somerset side.
A lead of 174, more than double Somerset’s first innings provided the opportunity for the Somerset batsmen to show some pride in wearing the badge and representing the club. In one ball over ten overs Somerset’s second innings was reduced to 18-5. Tom Abell the fifth batsmen to be dismissed had made 14 of that total, the other four batsmen dismissed had lasted 23 balls between them.
If that doesn’t make pretty reading, it wasn’t pretty listening. The Yorkshire live-stream had by then, like the Somerset side, given up, sparing us from the visuals of the horror show that was unfolding in the North Marine Road sunshine.
Steven Davies and Tom Banton followed before the total had reached 70 and although Ben Green and Jack Leach – 33 and 26 respectively – did show some fight and pride it was all too little too late.
The final piece of hurt was when Dom Bess removed his erstwhile spin-twin to avenge his dismissal at Leach’s hands on the first evening. But there was still time for Marchant de Lange to put his own exclamation mark onto the sorry affair with a sorry heave in the last of the extra eight overs.
It is going to take a lot of thought to rationalise what we have seen since last Monday. And I feel a duty to give myself some time to put into words what I suspect a large number of us are feeling now. But I’d like some honest explanations and an apology from within the club.
