v Nottinghamshire LVCC2 @ Trent Bridge Wednesday 8 August 2007

Scorecard

We've got ourselves into a position where we are frontrunners in the Division 2 Championship race and this game will decide how 'real' our claim is.  Notts can catch us and Essex can keep in touch if we fail to beat the home side here in sunny Nottingham.  Justin picks his first choice eleven again - one of the reasons for our present position is the fact that he can!

Tresecothick, Edwards, Langer, Hildreth, White, Blackwell, Trego, Kieswetter, Jones, Caddick, Willoughby with Mark Turner taking up the 12th man duties.

Notts won the toss, chose to go in first and made a decent fist of the start with Gallian and Jefferson stunting our new ball attack and putting on 55 before Gallian went to Caddick. They'd passed 100 before the huge Jefferson (he's like Lurch from the Addams Family!!) was run out - surprising as he looked like he could take a 22 yard stride without moving.  It looked like the makings of a high scoring game of attrition between two big batting line-ups.  Notts have problems with their bowling but unless we got them out we weren't going to be in a position to exploit that and they looked set as Wagh took them past 150.

But Caddick decided enough was enough and dispatched Wagh at 151.  He then followed that with a very rare thing...a first ball duck for Hussey and with Willoughby clearing out Patel and read before they passed 170 the game changed a little and the 350+ score on the first day became a little harder to envisage. Fleming held his side together and got fair contributions from most of the tail so they marshalled a good first innings score of 350 but it needed an excellent 145 from the Kiwi to anchor it against some excecllent support bowling from White and Blackwell who accounted for the back end of the Outlaws while the Mighty AC took out Fleming as the last man to register another premier bowling performance of 18.3 overs, 4 for 69.  Jonah got some tap, going for 7.7 an over in his 7 but that is not always a bad thing when everyone else keeps it tight because it makes him fume for the second innings!!

We had a decent spell to weather on Day 1 and although we lost Edwards at 66 to the spin of Swann, we were ready to go into Day 2 with 83 on the board.

Day 2

Banger didn't hang around long in the morning and we nearly lost Caddick to the Test but nightwatchman Kieswetter helped to get the score past the first 100.  Unfortunately we didn't capitalise and although Langer and Hildreth managed to get us to the second, neither established themselves before going.  Can't say Justin was over the moon about his dismissal and he wasn't too bothered about who knew it when he was out to Clough LBW he was a little unimpressed, told the umpire so and then had real trouble getting his hands out of his gloves on his way off the field - incandescent with rage is a phrase that comes to mind.  You could hear the Somerset dressing room emptying as the captain left the field!!

At 211 for 5 we were in a spot of bother but a masterful 58 off 65 - after a scratchy start - from Blackwell (one gets the feeling that some team is going to catch a real big cold fromt his bloke sometime in the next month!), great support batting from Peter Trego (67 off 82) a man the Notts fans seemed to think was the start of the tail and a solid and thoughtful century plus 24 from Cameron White gave us the initiative and a decent first innings lead of 102.  Notts survived without loss and started Day 3 with 9 up.

Day 3

My first visit to the Test home of my native county and it is quite impressive from outside.  Surprisingly small inside though and it gives me the impression that this is the environment we may be experiencing in the near future as our own ground develops.  There are worse places to watch cricket on a sunny Friday than at'Bridge!

Gallian and Jefferson are out there again and are having a lot of problems against our new ball duo.  Charl Willoughby is really unlucky today while all the Outlaws have all kinds of problems against his partner.  He is aggressive and passes the bat on more than one occasion but it is spin that gets the ball rolling when Ian Blackwell catches Gallian in front in opinion of the umpire.  Steffan Jones was not impressed by his pasting yesterday and is pounding in and letting fly today.  He is far too much to handle for Wagh who he castles with 58 on the board (Great info on it once you know where each little bit is - it isn't exactly logically set out!).  But spin is the deal of the day and IB is keen to keep this going when he bamboozles Jefferson who spoons one to Hildreth at 68.

Now we come to the partnership of the game.  Fleming and Hussey can make this very very difficult for us.  Swann will be a handful on the last day and these two experienced men can give him a hell of a target to aim at.  Hussey understands this and takes on the spinner.  Fleming is also looking to go for the slow men and we are really glad to see lunch so we can reset ourselves. 

After lunch we start again with the spinners but bring Caddy back to rough 'em up a bit.  Hussey blocks him out and looks for runs off the other end.  Unfortunately for the Outlaws, Fleming isn't so lucky and he becomes our main man's second victim at 134. Patel also has problems with the Cadmeister. He tries to pull him and thinks better of it, he tries again and gets himself all tied up but he doesn't glove it.  It is made worse by Cameron dropping a bit of a sitter off that man Hussey at 148.  Will that come back to haunt us?

Finally we get Patel, it's that 38 year old again!  But Hussey is having none of it.  Langer turns to spin and we work at tying the Aussie around 50.  It takes him an age to get there and we attack Read whenever possible in the meantime but he is still the dangerman.  He finally gets there at 166 for 5 off 74 balls.

White is not causing many problems but he is keeping the score down.  Notts pass 200 in the 64th over but it isn't until we get to 233 that Cameron bowls one of his 'non filth' balls and decieves the Outlaw wicketkeeper who is caught by Trescothick. As is usual with CW he tends to get two once he has one and he gets an interesting LBW decision against Swann 4 runs later followed by a Clough snick to Kieswetter just after tea.  Ian then finishes up with a couple of LBW decisions and Notts have effectively collapsed to 279 all out leaving their one real chance, Mike Hussey 108 not out without a partner to keep the score moving. 

If we'd got him at 148 then we would be looing for something around 100.  As it is we have 27 overs to get 178 to win.  It should be a walk in the park but that isn't always somewhere Somerset like to walk!!

We start in usual form.  Tresco and Edwardo put on 40 before Marcus suddenly decides he hasn't run enouogh ropy singles and tries to run one off a misfield.  A very big 'NO' from Neil is of little use and our experienced international trudges back run out!  Oh well, there aren't that many to get.

Langer strides out to get this innings sorted but Edwards decides to join his opening partner in the pavilion by managing to snick Swann to Read without moving the score on and we have two new batsmen at the crease with 138 still required.  Nevertheless, JH shows his mettle by taking us past 50 with a six.  Unfortunately, Justin doesn't seem to want to remain either as he is stumped on the legside by some very quick work from the bloke who should be keeping wicket at the Oval rather than being here!!  Oh dear.

Cameron comes out and we all wonder what will happen regarding the extra half hour as he takes his time getting set.  A fine cut just past Fleming's hand nearly gives us the answer but the NZ captain only gets a finger to it.  Nevertheless with only 90 scored with 7 overs to go we don't think it's going to happen as Swann is causing a lot of concern and Malik is starting to get his radar in tune.  The 100 comes up in the 21st but Malik bowls James at 107 and puts paid to a three day finish.  Ian doesn't look at all comfortable and Whitey is taking absolutely no chances.  We finish at 116 and we'll all be back tomorrow for the end one way or the other.

Day 4

62 required and a whole day to get them with 6 wickets in hand.  Ian is still being very cagey but there aren't really enough runs for Notts to do anything without a big Somerset collapse.  Once the runs go below 50, the shackles come off and the race becomes one to see whether Cameron can reach 50 before we beat the second placed Championship contenders with the third place side losing to Gloucestershire.  Ian puts the ball to the boundary a couple of times to finsih the game off and CW finishes an excellent game with the bat with an unbeaten 47.

On top, with a buffer of more than the points for a game and some 40-50 points ahead of the side in third.  We aren't there yet but we look bloody strong favourites to take one of the promotion places.  This was a really professional victory.  Good opponents and we just kept our "shape" and gameplan and ground them down.  Hussey in the first and Fleming in the second were the difference.  They didn't have our bowling so we needed to neutralise their batting and we did that effectively by removiing the partners before they could settle.

We look like Champions but we aren't there yet.  However, well done boys!!  On to Cardiff after Colwyn Bay is washed out so we get a weekend off. 

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