Tag: Gloucestershire v Somerset

Glory for Gloucestershire

A look back at the finale to the longest day of the English cricket calendar, the T20 blast final between Gloucestershire and Somerset. Also a photo gallery.

I covered the semi-finals yesterday, immediately after the second of them concluded. This post looks at the final, between the two west country sides, Gloucestershire and Somerset.

APPLYING THE SQUEEZE WITH THE BALL

Both sides were unchanged from their semi-final successes. Gloucestershire won the toss and decided to bowl first. Somerset started fast, but Matt Taylor got Will Smeed with the first ball of the fourth over to make it 28-1. Taylor ended that fourth over by removing the other Somerset opener, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, for 20. Then in the sixth over James Rew became Taylor’s third victim. The third ball of the seventh over, bowled by Oliver Price, got through the defences of Dickson, one of the batting heroes of Somerset’s semi-final victory, for a duck, and Somerset were 42-4 and in a pile of trouble. They never really extracted themselves from this predicament, though skipper Lewis Gregory fought his way to a half century. Gregory’s innings was terminated by David Payne with the penultimate ball of the 19th over, with the score on 123. It was Payne’s 33rd wicket of the tournament, equalling the all time record for a single year of this competition, set by Alfonso Thomas of Somerset some years ago. Only one further run accrued before Jake Ball was out with two balls of the innings left. A toral of 124 left Somerset in ‘miracles required’ territory 0 the previous lowest ever total defended successfully in a final was 145 by Somerset themselves last year and by Leicestershire a few years back.

KILLING THE CHASE

Somerset needed early wickets to have any chance at all of defending their decidedly modest score, and they did not get them. Miles Hammond and Cameron Bancroft were soon scoring at well above the required rate. A ten wicket win looked likely when both were going great guns. By the time Bancroft finally fell to a catch by Smeed off Davey there were only 13 more needed for the win. Bracey fell cheaply, but by then only six were required. Miles Hammond was there at the end, 58 not out from 41 balls (as compared to Bancroft’s 53 from 42 balls), but it was the new batter, Oliver Price, who ended the chase with a six. Gloucestershire had eight wickets and five whole overs to spare, meaning that overall in their semi-final and final they had 16 wickets and 11.2 overs to spare on their opponents. In losing only four wickets on finals day while winning the trophy they had set a new record – the previous fewest wickets lost on the day by a trophy winning side was five by Northamptonshire. Full scorecard here.

Matt Taylor, whose three early wickets put the skids under the Somerset innings, was correctly named Player of the Match. This is Gloucestershire’s first ever T20 Blast trophy, though just a few years before the launch of T20 cricket they had a very successful one-day side. They were named ‘Champion County’ three times in the 1870s, being unbeaten in two of those seasons, and have been runners up six times since the County Championship was put on an organized footing in 1890. Somerset still have shots at two trophies this season – they are in the final of the One Day Cup, and are challenging hard for the county championship (see here).

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off (remember to click on images to view them at a larger size)…

This cormorant (three pics) was swimming in a stretch of the Gaywood in which I have never previously seen one, which runs more or less past the back of Gaywood Tesco.

County Championship Washouts

This post looks at such play as there has been in the latest round of championship fixtures, which have been heavily affected by the weather – there have been bands of rain sweeping across Britain, coming in from the west although by some freak my corner of northwest Norfolk has largely escaped, with only Friday being really wet.

THE EARLY GAME

Hampshire v Leciestershire was supposed to run from Wednesday to Saturday. In fact only a tiny amount of cricket was possible. Hampshire scored 233 in the first innings, bowled Leicestershire out for 84, and forfeited their second innings, leaving Leicestershire 22 overs to score 150 to win. Leicestershire made no serious effort to take on this chase on the game was drawn.

AROUND THE GROUNDS

A number of games have been so badly hammered by the weather that there is no real chance of a result. Kent v Glamorgan and Northamptonshire v Lancashire have already been confirmed as draws, though the former saw an amazing performance from Darren Stevens. Kent at low water mark were 93-7 in their first innings, but ended up tallying 307. Stevens, at the age of 45 scored 190, with 15 sixes and 15 fours. He shared a ninth wicket stand of 166 with Miguel Cummins, whose share of that partnership was one not out. Stevens then added the wicket of Marnus Labuschagne to his share of the spoils. Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire, Durham v Derbyshire and Essex v Warwickshire are all headed the same way, and it will take miracles for any of those games to yield definite results. Gloucestershire v Somerset is likely to be a draw as well, but the way Gloucestershire are collapsing means that it is not dead yet – Somerset scored 300-8 declared, with Tom Abell scoring his first century of the season (overall he now has over 500 runs at an average of more than 60 for the season), and Gloucestershire are 27-6 in reply. That leaves the London derby, in which the Surrey openers, Burns and Stoneman have been utterly dominant – they put on 135 in each innings, equalling the highest ever identical opening stands in FC history, a record set in 1979 by Kepler Wessels and John Barclay of Sussex. Surrey declared just before lunch today at 259-2, setting Middlesex 290 (full scores, Surrey 190 and 259-2 dec, Middlesex 160 and 28-1). Burns completed his first century of the season.

A POTENTIAL ENGLAND NO3

Somerset started this season with a plan for their top order – three guys all answering to Tom, Lammonby, Banton and Abell at 1,2 and 3. Banton has already fallen by the wayside, his career as a first class opener over almost before it began. Lammonby has managed one good score all season, and his dismissal in the game currently in progress, run out going for one that was never there, was the product of a scrambled mind. The one to prosper has been Tom Abell who is handling batting at no3 like one born to perform that task. Crawley remains the man in possession for England, but if he does not score runs against NZ then England may decide that change is needed, and Abell would surely be the logical person to turn to in that case: he is just entering the prime years of a cricketer’s career, he is batting superbly at no3 and several of his best scores have come in very testing situations, all of which give him the appearance of a test no3 in waiting.

A MATHEMATICAL TEASER

This problem comes from brilliant.org, but I have added a bonus element as well as slightly tweaking the setting:

A brief note on ‘concatenation’: in a mathematical context it is represented by an equals sign flipped through 90 degrees and it means that the two digits between which it appears are joined to form a single number.

Additional ‘bonus’ question: Once you have worked out the answer to the main problem, if one of the two sums cannot be solved under the given conditions what extra operations would need to be permitted to make it solvable? Full explanation in my next blog post.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

  • Having had both doses, just for the record, I had one day of fractionally elevated temperature after the first dose and no side effects at all after the second.

Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire has progressed while I have been preparing to put this post up – Worcs, all out for 80 in the first innings are 106-4 in their second, still 214 away from avoiding an innings defeat, and suddenly definitely looking at defeat.