Saviour?
v Hampshire FPT(S) @ The Rosebowl Friday 18 May 2007
Two games in 3 days that will decide our fate in this competition after the loss to Sussex that should have gone another way. Both away from home and the second one in points thirsty Bristol! We have to put our best one day feet forward this weekend.
With that in mind and with little cricket in the last week, Langer has gone with the men making names at the moment and a full seam line-up (where the hell is Phillips?). Matt Wood still can find no way into a first class side and the medium pace of Parsons is preferred to the spin of Durston. We go in with;
Trescothick, Langer, White, Hildreth, Blackwell, Parsons, Keiswetter, Trego, Jones, Caddick and Willoughby
Hampshire win the toss and see something in the pitch so they put us in and Dimitiri Mascarenhas provides Warne with exactly what he wants as both openers go to him clean bowled with very little on the board. 27 runs is not a good start with two down and it gets no better as Hildreth is castled by Tremlett before we reach 50 with almost half the overs gone.
Parsons then shows half the reason why he is there acting as the anchor while first White and then Blackwell put together partnerships that pull us up into some kind of contention. 49 with Cameron 52 is followed by 52 with Ian to get the score over 150 before he too perishesleaving the support job to Trigger who helps Ian over 50 and the total up towards 200. When Blackie is caught and bowled by Ervine at 181 it is left to Peter and Craig Keiswetter to help Somerset make a semi-competitive score of 220 at the end of the 50 overs.
Humble Opinion
It isn't enough and we need a great bowling performance and 10 wickets to win this one. Trego hasn't started at all well going for 8.5 per over in his first 2 and Hampshire are 34 for no wicket at the end of the 8th.
The Reply
Well they had 59 up before we decreased their numbers as Jones had Benham caught and they'd passed 100 before we got the second when Lumb plonked one of Blackwell's into the waiting hands of Hildreth. From Bicknoller Heights, this one looked gone. The ball had been moving about during our innings. Nick Smyth(I think) sent me a text from the ground stating that the first three of our wickets went to defensive shots!! We were relying on our spinners and Pete Trego - number one bowler so far was removed fromthe attackafter 4 had gone for nearly 30!! There wasn't exactly hope on the internet scorecard.
However, when Carberry was Blackwell's second victim at 124, everything went up a gear. Willow took out Crawley at 141, Pothas was caught behind off Parsons at 144 and Mascarenhas (our real problem in the past) was run out without adding to the score and then...always joy of joys....Warney was caught by Langy of the bowling of Willowy with only 4 more added. Now we had a bit of a game on...even on the desktop.
The trouble was that the amount of runs needed was far outweighed by the amount of balls remaining to get them in and Udal and Ervine set themselves to win the game with a 50+ partnership. Caddick got into the wickets with only 14 needed by sending Udal packing and Jonah did what we all like Jonah doing and castled Ervine in the last over with 4 needed off 3 balls. They managed only 3 and we tied the game!!
Good result? Well it's better than losing. A couple of people better situated for a comment were;
Botham..who didn't seem to see much
"Hants won the toss and put us in in humid conditions. The ball swung and seamed and we did well to miss on many occasions. It was really hard work and the bowlers bowled very well. Highlights were a solid innings from Cam plus a whirlwind knock from Blackie, who took on the Aussies. At one stage they had four fielders on the leg side boundary, very close together! Parsy also batted well and Craig and Trigger made useful late contributions. The fielding was excellent.
Our bowlers started in exactly the opposite way from Hants. We bowled too many short, wide balls and Hants took full advantage. We got back into the game thanks to fine spells from Parsy and Blackie, who appeared to tie them down.
I can't remember too much more detail as I was gassing to various Somerset supporters and officials. Good to see Richard Gould offering his support. I suggested he buy a sat-nav to avoid unnecessarily long journeys! "
Doc Hennessey...who I'm not sure was there or not but an interesting point that I missed
"On the last ball of the Somerset innings, with the score on 219, Craig K was facing. He worked the ball into the backward point area. As you can imagine Trigger was backing up a long way and was almost on him, shouting for two. CK duly scampered off at a rate of knots and they got back for the second run, just. The scoreboard rotates to show : Somerset total 221
Then the signal from the umpire : one of them didn't ground his bat. Somerset total reverts to 220."
Nick S summed it up in his text at about 3:50
"...Looks like a bad toss to lose. Ball seaming around...sun breaking through so should get easier later..."
We batted in the worst conditions (they bowled 9 wides and 2 no balls!!) and we bowled in the worst conditions (we bowled 4of the wide variety, 2 to the luckless Trigger - not your night PT) and we tied a game that we probably should have lost. We needed more runs and all credit to them for not letting us get them but we then defended a target with good spells from Jones who did what we pay him for and broke the winning partnership in sight of the finishing line. Willoughby who took his wickets in the vital middle part of the innings and mucked up their rhythm and especially Blackie who, after keeping us in the game by taking on Warne and smacking 57 off 31 balls bowled 9 overs for 27 and got two of the home side. Saved our bacon tonight Ian thanks a lot.
If you want to read Hampshire's view of the game then here we go - thanks to the forum posters
On to Bristol!!
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