County Cricket: Somerset Rewdy and Abell

Somerset Rewdy and Abell 

Only four Championship fixtures this week, but they delivered a high degree of excitement over the four days. At the Rose Bowl, Hampshire and Somerset engaged in a tight game of cat-and-mouse, with little between them, and enough in the wicket to please batters and bowlers alike. Lewis Gregory returned to lead Somerset and eventually turned the game in their favour, but the result was in doubt well into the final day. 

James Rew struck 86 to take Somerset to a 50-run first-innings lead, then Hampshire were heading towards a potential 400 total until Gregory mopped up the last four wickets. His side still had a lot to do. A target of 288 was not going to be simple. However, good things happen when Rew and Tom Abell are together at the crease. They put on 89 but, even after Rew was caught behind for 59 and three more were despatched, Abell maintained admirable patience and determination and his eighth boundary brought up both his century and victory for Somerset. There is talk about England sniffing around young Rew but I hope they hold off until the county’s season is over, preferably with a maiden title in their grasp. Well, you can only hope…. 

There were only forty-one runs separating Warwickshire and Essex, too. Seamers were generally on top and 220 proved to be the highest total, and Beau Webster’s 91 the top individual score. Chasing 206 to win on the fourth day, Essex slumped to 21-4, their top three falling to the veteran Keith Barker, back in the Warwickshire side after a seven-season stint at Hampshire. Harmer and Akhtar offered some tail-end resistance but Webster broke both to earn the home side’s first success of the year. 

Barker is a mere spring chicken compared with James Anderson but the former England record-breaker bowled his way to another Team of the Week entry and Lancashire dealt Gloucestershire another Spring blow at Bristol. The home side did acquire their first bonus points of the campaign, but batting remains a huge problem. Anderson (3-12) and George Balderson (5-34) skittled Gloucester for 136 but Matt Taylor’s 6-43 kept them in the match. Second time around, Hammond and Bracey put on 148 for the fourth wicket to extend the game into the final day. At 46-3, Lancashire were tottering but Keaton Jennings’ second 70+ score guided then home by four wickets. 

At Wantage Road, there was no repeat of Northants’ rampant run glut but batsmen were too dominant to prevent a draw. Nathan McSweeney struck a second successive ton and James Sales stroked his way to 164 but, in their second outing, Middlesex safely batted through four sessions to seal the draw. Sam Robson shared a couple of century partnerships with Holden and Du Plooy on his way to 162, falling to Guthrie shortly before the curtain fell. 

Lancashire will extend their Division Two lead next week, travelling to Durham, while it will be the Derbyshire attack eager to rip into the Gloucester line-up. 

Team of the Week:-  Jennings (Lan), Robson (Mid), J Rew (Som +), Bracey (Glo), Abell (Som), Sales (Nor), Gregory (Som), Balderson (Lan), M Taylor

Bears Blast to the Top

Everybody knows that Twenty20 is such an unpr4dictable form of cricket. Matches can turn upon a few wickets or a couple of sixes. Tjis has a knock-on effect on the league tables, too. It can also produce genuine nail-biters. 

In this week’s Blast, there were two tied matches: Northants v Leicestershire and Gloucestershire v Surrey. Durham fans, in particular, enjoyed a few cliffhangers, edging Lancashire by two runs and Yorkshire by three. The Roses derby itself at Headingley ended in a tight seven-run margin in favour of the home team, for whom spinner Dom Bess was consistently economical. 

In the North division, the Birmingham Bears stormed to the top on the back of a four-match streak The main impetus came from the spinning all-rounders. Danny Briggs conceded no more than 26 in any of his four games and young Dan Mousley again showed why he is one of the most promising T20 performers in the country. His 20-year-old colleague Jacob Bethell let fly with the most dramatic half-century of the week, a blistering 16-ball unbeaten 56 against Northants, including seven sixes. 

One Rishi may be tottering towards the end of an undistinguished innings at Westminster but another, Rishi Patel, produced the only ton of the past eight days. The Essex-born Leicestershire opener devastated the Northants attack with 104 in 45 balls, and has now not been dismissed for under thirty for seven matches. A special mention, too, for South African Matthew Breetzke, who accumulate more than 200 runs for Northants this week. 

In the South, Surrey reman top, but the key result was their 54-run triumph over second-placed Sussex at Hove. The latest fixtures included two five-fors, amazingly both in the same game. Luke Hollman’s 5-16 was Middlesex’s only bright spot in Surrey’s innings at Lord’s, then the visiting seamer Sean Abbott took 5-18! Middlesex now have a solitary win out of eight. 

Other impressive bowling feats were Roloef van der Merwe’s two wickets with his only two balls in Somerset’s 108-run rout of Glamorgan and Timm van Gugten’s 2-8 in four overs against Gloucestershire. Not quite Lockie Ferguson’s clutch of World Cup maidens but pretty nifty, nonetheless. 

Gloucestershire dragged themselves back into knockout contention with three successes against Somerset, Glamorgan and Kent. Batsman Miles Hammond and paceman Matt Taylor were the star individuals. Essex sit in third, bolstered by runs from Dean Elgar and local boy Michael Pepper. 

Now it’s the return of proper cricket for a few weeks before the T20 group stage concludes in July. 

Team of the Week:- R Patel (Lei), Hammond (Glo), Breetzke (Nor), J Smith (Sur +), Pepper (Ess), Mousley (War), Bethell (War), S Abbott (Sur), M Taylor (Glo), Briggs (War), Bess (Yor)