Today is day three of the current round of county championship matches, and there is now only one match remaining to be decided. For the most of the day my attention was devoted to Hampshire Women v Surrey Women in the Women’s One Day Cup, and I will write about that match in detail before providing very brief descriptions of happenings elsewhere.
HAMPSHIRE OUTDO SURREY
Hampshire’s opening pair, McCaughan and Bouchier, gave their side a very strong start. Bouchier was particularly impressive for her 61. At 116-0 in the 22nd over Hampshire looked headed for a big total, but Surrey came back well after that, and in the end the total was 259-8, which looked it should be chaseable. Kalea Moore and Alice Capsey each took two wickets, but the best bowler for Surrey was Danielle Gregory, whose leg spin yielded a return of 10-0-32-1. Rebecca Tyson, making her first appearance in a game at this level, made her first interventions early in the Surrey reply, taking catches to account for both openers, Bryony Smith for 6 and Danni Wyatt-Hodge for 2. The bowlers off whom these catches were taken were Lauren Bell and Freya Davies, both tall, and both with long blonde hair. Capsey, the Surrey number three, dug in, but wickets continued to fall regularly at the other end. Dunkley was bowled by Bell for 4, Alice Davidson-Richards fell LBW to Linsey Smith for 19, the left arm spinner’s first victim, and Paige Scholfield was run out for 15, at which point it was 98-5. Alice Monaghan was the first Surrey player other than Capsey to play an innings of substance, playing the more aggressive role while Capsey was anchoring things. A sharp return catch by Smith ended Monaghan’s innings at 40, and in her very next over Smith took another fine return catch to get Surrey keeper Kira Chathli for 6. Then came the moment that virtually settled things, with 173 runs on the board, when Capsey, on 57, was caught by Georgia Adams off Freya Davies. That made it eight down and only numbers 9,10 and 11 to attempt to score 87 between them. 19 of these had been amassed when Tyson secured her first wicket, trapping Franklin LBW. Gregory did her best to support Moore, and the final wicket was something of a freak dismissal: Moore hit one back hard at Tyson, who was not able to cling on to what would have been a sensational caught and bowled, but the ball hit the bowler’s end stumps with Gregory out of her ground at that end, so it was a run out.
ELSEWHERE
In the County Championship match I followed for its first two days I had expected today not to be terribly eventful. Surrey extended their first innings lead to 84, Lawrence ending undefeated on 55. Somerset then suffered an epic batting collapse, being 38-7 at one stage (and this was effectively 38-8 with Dickson confirmed as unable to bat due to injury). Migael Pretorius and Lewis Gregory prevented the innings defeat, with the former scoring a half century. Pretorius’ innings was ended by the sort of catch that sets Ben Foakes apart from other wicket keepers, giving James Taylor his first wicket of the season. A few moments later Taylor ended the innings by having Leach caught by Sibley at first slip. That left Surrey needing 36 to win, which they achieved for the loss of two wickets.
Durham had already beaten Worcestershire before the end of yesterday, Worcestershire managing 162 and 81, and Durham 136 and 108-4.
Sussex mounted a bit of a fightback against Nottinghamshire in their match, but were still only able to set Nottinghamshire 148, and they made that target look trifling, winning by nine wickets.
Gloucestershire managed to set Leicestershire 143 in the final innings at Bristol, and there were times when that looked like being enough, but in the end Leicestershire got home two wickets. Dominic Goodman collected nine wickets in the match for Gloucestershire.
With only five matches scheduled for this round that leaves only Derbyshire v Middlesex in action. Middlesex put Derbyshire in, when Derbyshire would have batted first in any case. It was the home team who had judged things better – they racked up 472 batting first. Middlesex were all out for 315 in reply, which meant that 157 (150 is the Rubicon point in this context) that Derbyshire were able to enforce the follow-on, which it being late on day three meaning that there was insufficient time to build a big lead and then put Middlesex back in, they duly did. They have taken one early wicket, but Holden (16*) and Eskinazi (19*) are looking reasonably comfortable at present, with the score 35-1.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
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