County Championship Division One, Cardiff, Day Two – Somerset 354 (Abell 86, Thomas 71) & 32-6 lead Glamorgan 229 by 157 runs
I’m always looking at a Championship game on a session by session basis. Despite the loss of three first innings wickets at the end of the final session of the first day, when I had to stop following the play in Cardiff after tea, when Somerset had secured a lead of 125 I felt that we had won every session on the first two days.
But as Thomas Jefferson’s lyric goes in Hamilton, I was left asking myself ‘what did I miss’ when I was able to grab a peak at my phone an hour after the close. All that was needed was a nice calm end to the second day. What actually transpired was as far from nice or calm that can be imagined. Even a veteran Somerset fan like me was not expecting the catastrophic conclusion to the day.
The James Rew transition has not got off to the start we all wanted (and probably expected) – he was the first to go half way through the 5th over and two balls later Tom Lammonby and Archie Vaughan were sitting with him in the visitors dressing room. 7-3. Five overs and 22 runs later the promise of another Tomas/Abell collaborative, innings saving alliance was dashed and within the space of another 10 balls Glamorgan had added the wickets of nightwatchman Jack Leach and Will Smeed.
I wonder what was going through Tom Abell’s head as he walked off at the end of the day? I wonder what mood he found in the dressing room when he got there? I’m for once glad I wasn’t in a Somerset dressing room. Glamorgan and particularly debutant Tom Norton were probably equally as speechless at the close. A hat-trick at any level is pretty special, on debut beyond belief and for your home county in i One of the Championship at another level. But there is is in the books, Rew, Lammonby and Vaughan three of the top 4 all summarily accounted for
Yet again Somerset had done everything right for the vast majority of the day. Jack Leach and Jake Ball added another 17 in the morning, breaking the habit, in the most unlikely circumstances, of Somerset starting the day with a clatter of wickets.
They bowled with control and for the most part discipline although the skipper’s continuing propensity is immensely frustrating. The four-pronged seam attack giving the Glamorgan batsmen no respite. It was only when the sixth wicket pair were adding 80 that the hosts seemed to have any air of permenance. But once Jack Leach picked up his sole wicket of the innings (he only contributed six overs) 173-5 became 185-8.
Frustratingly the last two wickets added 44 to trim Somerset’s lead below the 150 that I wanted. But as I parted company with the commentary I was comforted by the ease with which the lower order had negotiated 25 overs.
So where does this leave us? After losing after having built a dominant position against Yorkshire last week history seems to be repeating.
Surely a lead of under 200 is not enough? I can’t see a third day wicket at Cardiff continue to favour the bowlers. Surely it is beyond the powers of even Tom Abell to guide Somerset near to a lead of 300 which would give me more reasons for optimism.
And the problem is that, after such a great start to the campaign the stakes here are really high. A second successive defeat against a side which we must be beating if we have genuine title pretensions would be hugely damaging.
Somerset cannot afford, in the words of Alexander Hamilton in that musical, ‘throw away their shot’
