County Championship Division One, Taunton, Day 2, Yorkshire 162 & 13-0 trail Somerset 274 by 99 runs
When I write this blog I always think of my Dad and our post-day’s play conversations which lasted over 40 years. When I was writing last night’s post I could hear him saying, ‘yes, Steve, but a couple of quick wickets tomorrow morning and …..’ The voice was so loud in my head I almost wrote it, but for superstitious reasons I didn’t.
Tonight’s call would have definitely been, ‘ I told you so’. And let’s be honest many of us would have been thinking the same.
Sometimes there is so much to document in a day’s play that there is no time to look at the day with perspective. Today the reverse is true, with so little action, all of it disappointing, the doubts, worries and concerns crowd back in.
Although this was a severely truncated day there are some lessons Somerset need to learn if they are to, at long last, bring the title home to Taunton. I’ll get to them in a moment but, undoubtedly this was a hugely disappointing day. I can think of five big ones:
Disappointment #1 – Josh Thomas departs in the first over of the day without adding to his overnight total
Disappointment #2 – Thomas Rex’s County Championship debut lasted just 2 balls. After all the anticipation and the build up yesterday I was fit to burst when he walked out to join Tom Abell, and almost did when he departed.
Disappointment #3 – Tom Abell couldn’t hang around to extend the lead after going to another championship 50.
Disappointment #4 – Somerset’s incredibly deep batting line up’s lower order couldn’t stretch the lead.
Yesterday evening a lead of 150 seemed an absolute minimum. Within 10 minutes of the day starting a lead of 150 seemed an absolute pipe dream. As Will Smeed endured another tough start – an agonising watch I feared the worst and suspected as soon as Tom Abell departed that this was not going to be a day for lower-order heroics.
Smeed to his credit touched it out, reaching 36 of 82 balls before he ran out of partners. He continues to show there is a proper red ball player in there but boy I could do with him getting away sooner and smoother. My stress levels can’t cope with many more of these starts from Will.
Disappointment #5 – Somerset couldn’t make a breakthrough before the rain arrived – a little churlish this one – but I would feel a lot better if the Tykes had lost one of their openers.
Somerset are still in a strong position but they have allowed their opponents a chink of hope. They have to go again and hope that they can restrict Yorkshire’s second innings sufficiently to avoid another tricky fourth innings pursuit. Championship winning teams season’s are characterised by taking advantage of positions of hard-earned dominance. It asks a lot mentally and physically of the players to keep bouncing back from frittered away dominant positions.
As I write this tomorrow’s weather forecast is not encouraging – a 35% chance of rain between 12 and 6, so Somerset will need some luck to progress the game in their favour. Tomorrow is unlikely to be a batting day so restricting Yorkshire’s advantage to under a hundred must be the target.
Please, oh please……
