At about 4:15PM UK time today the umpires at Northampton decided that it was too dark there to continue, and with that decision the third round of this year’s county championship was at an end, all the other games having been decided.
IT WAS THE BEST OF GAMES…
Hampshire and Somerset fought out an absolute thriller at Southampton. Somerset resumed overnight on 139-3, needing 148 more to win with seven wickets standing. The early loss of James Rew was counterbalanced by a fighting fifth wicket stand between Tom Abell and Will Smeed. Then in the run up to lunch both Smeed and Overton got out to ill-advised shots, and it was 197-6, 90 needed and four wickets left, with Gregory joining Abell. Progress in the afternoon was slow, as Hampshire made Abell and Gregory work hard for every run, but the score mounted imperceptibly at first, then noticeably. The ask was down to 25, and Somerset were looking definite favourites when speedster Sonny Baker, who has recently switched counties from Somerset to Hampshire, rattled Gregory’s stumps for his fourth scalp of the innings. Alfie Ogborne, promoted after his career best 38 in the first innings, failed this time, caught behind for 7 to give Baker a fifth scalp, and the score was 272-8. That brought Jack Leach, who of course has history when it comes to tight finishes (see the Headingley Heist) in to join his fellow Tauntonian Abell with 15 required, and Abell closing in on three figures. Like his spiritual forebear Horace Hazell, who made a habit of seeing partners to centuries and sides to narrow wins over the course of his career, Leach is well suited to this sort of situation. The score inched up until just four were needed. The next over went Hampshire;s way for five balls, but Abell managed a single off the sixth to reduce the ask to three and retain the strike. Kyle Abbott then accepted responsibility for bowling the next over, his 25th of the innings – a heavy workload for someone firmly at the veteran stage of his career. Abell got the very first ball of the new over away for four to take Somerset to a two wicket victory and himself to 101 not out. Abell had faced 229 balls in total, been at the crease for 314 minutes and that last boundary was only the eighth of his innings. A pitch which produces a pulsating match, and a definite result late on the final afternoon has to be rated perfect for the match it was prepared for, so props to the Hampshire ground staff. Full scorecard here.
…IT WAS THE WORST OF GAMES
A combination of an overly flat pitch and overly cautious umpires (I suspect given what I know of them that Mr Shanmugam was guiltier in this regard than Ms Redfern) had pretty much consigned the match at Wantage Road to a draw before today even started. Short of Northamptonshire ripping through Middlesex’s last eight wickets in the morning session it was hard to see any chance of any interest developing. In the event Middlesex lost no wickets in the morning session, and only one in the afternoon session. By the time I joined the coverage of this match, purely because it was the only game still in action, the only question was when hands would be shaken. In the event the light intervened shortly after the evening session got underway, and the game did not resume. The scores in this game were Middlesex 341 and 353-3, Northamptonshire 409, meaning that Middlesex were 284 ahead with seven second innings wickets standing – neither side within a country mile of winning. It is true that the light, and the overly cautious decisions of the umpires in this regard robbed the game of a good 80 overs, but even with those overs being bowled it would have taken a declaration in the Middlesex second innings to make things remotely interesting. Thus this pitch was not suitable for the match it was prepared for, since it would in any circumstances have required intervention (in the form of a declaration) to open up the possibility of a result.
ELSEWHERE
Lancashire beat Gloucestershire by four wickets in the only game that I did not catch any of. The other match was between Warwickshire and Essex, and it was a low scoring, hard fought affair. Essex needed 206 to win in the final innings, exactly one run more than they had managed in their first innings. When they crashed to 82-7 it looked a foregone conclusion in Warwickshire’s favour, but a lower order fightback would have had Warwickshire just a teeny bit worried when the score had reached 163-8, 43 short of victory. However in the space of two overs and a single run from that point both Simon Harmer (32) and Zaman Akhtar (35) were dismissed by Beau Webster, Harmer falling to a fine slip catch by Yates and Akhtar misjudging an attempted big hit to hole out to Sam Hain. Though I only caught the final stages of this match, having been concentrating on the thriller at Southampton for most of the four days I can tell that it would have been a fine match.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
aspiblog 