v Northamptonshire @ Northampton CC2 25 May 2005

Scorecard

It can't be the best situation, to be five games into a season without a win and to lose most of your first string bowlers to injury at the same time for the next one...and your new captain may be along to see some of the game before his debut on Monday!!  That is what Mr Garaway and the selectors face tonight. Although named in the side, there are doubts against the ability to bowl of Ian Blackwell (who didn't turn his arm over at all against Lancashire) and Richard Johnson.  Nixon McLean returns but is rumoured not to be 100% fit.  Andy Caddick (side strain) and Simon Francis (broken finger) already sit this one out.

So, what have we got?  Well the batting lines up roughly the same it seems.  Smith is not expected to turn out until the Sussex game at Taunton on Bank Holiday Monday and so Matt Wood gets another chance and will probably open with John Francis as against Lancashire...let's hope they can make a better start of it.  Sanath Jayasuriya (who the national papers seem to think is on his way home after this game..tut tut) will be at 3 and Mike Burns is rejuvinated at 4 after his 80 odd in the three day innings he had with the lilttle Sri Lankan.

The middle order failed to fire on Monday but will probably line up in the same way with Hildreth, Blackwell and Laraman backed up by a dependable Turner.  It is likely that Blackwell  will play because the other slow allrounders, Arul Suppiah and Wes Durston have been named in the Seconds game at Taunton which also starts tomorrow.  So is Keith Parsons so there must be some faith in the ability of the bowling attack to hold it together.  Sanath may be working hard though if the pitch takes spin of any kind.

Gareth Andrew keeps his place after 'a bit of tap' on Monday in the Lancashire haymaking of the afternoon.  He is probably lucky in the sense that Mike Parsons has been called to Taunton although he acquitted himself well at the same time.  That will be the case if both Richard Johnson, who needs to find some wicket- taking form, and Nixon McLean both play.  It is likely as Neil Edwards has been named as 12th man.

They'll face old boy Steffan Jones and the Northants crew with a real need to come away with as near to 20 points as possible.  The two sides are in the same area of the table and we need to beat our near rivals to gain confidence to take points of the high flyers and get ourselves back into this Championship race.

Day 1

We got the side right but I'm not sure we got the tactics down pat as Rob Turner puts the home side in.  Northants are supposedly big batting and small bowling so we needed early breakthroughs to vindicate the decision.

And the first one came quickly.  Nixon McLean had Shafayat in front at 8 - 21 for 1.  However, Love was not as easy to shift and he was joined by White who put together a 96 run stand before Johnson showed some of the old stuff and took 3 wickets in 4 balls!!  We were on a roll, White for 49, Sales 2 balls later and Afzaal first one up.  117 for 4 and we were cooking.

And here lies oour problem.  At that point we should have put them out of their misery in no uncertain terms.  We should have shut them down, tightened everything up and concentrated on squeezing the life out of them.  What happened?  Well Love and the new man in Keplar Wessells son, put on 185 as our line went and the inexperience of the change bowlers was not kept in check by some good work from the slow partnership of Blackwell and Sanath Jayasuriya.  The Older men didn't take any more and the younger, especially the new long form man, Gareth Andrew could not maintain control and let them get away.  This is the difference between one and four GA and it is a hard lesson to learn.

When Wessells went at 302 we looked a sorry sight and Northants still had men to add to our pain.  Luckily, Aaron Laraman, after poor early overs, started to regain the control and with the unstinting support of the slow men, and finally Andrew we started to get wickets.  Blackwell got Wright and AL got Phillips before the big wicket of Love for an excellent 166, stumpped by Turner off Blackwell.  We took the last 5 for 104 and pulled them back to just over 400.  It's probably 100 more than they should have scored but it gives us a chance to level this game up by the end of the second day.  A nice little filip for Andrew who took the last wicket but it's a steep learning curve for the guy and it's not going to get any flatter over the next couple of days.

A quality batting performance tomorrow is necessary to put us back into this game and a better, more penetrative performance with the ball in the second innings is required.

Excellent figures today by the Swarthy Greek however, 17 overs, 3 maidens, 3 for 54.  The only sad things is that the four balls he bowled in one spell kept us in this game, but for that we'd be looking down the barrell of another long haul back to a draw.  It has to get better!

Day 2

And I don't know if it did!  A day of batting has to be better..we stuck to the task and batted nearly the whole day out in search of the 400 plus mark to put us back in balance.  But it didn't work.

Two things happened.  Nearly everyone scored enough to get set and then no-one filled thier boots.  We also scored very slowly in a lot of cases (but not all).  The day started quite well with an 81 run opening partnership between John F and Matt Wood who finally got himself into gear and produced a good solid innings.  Frank Junior went first though for a grafting 43 and we all thought, "...now keep it together".  But we did.  Burns added another 40 with Wood before he went 3 runs after his 50, leaving the selectors in a pickle about who to move out to find space for Smith at Oakham.  It will probably still be Wood but you never know.

Jayasuriya joined 'George' and the score kept moving, even though Burns went 22 runs later at 141 for one of the quicker scores (34 off 43).  It's better but he may be another candidate to step aside for the new captain.  Hildreth joined SJ and we kept on scoring, no collapse yet.  Another 40, but another wicket as James under sells his stumps for 20.

This is what we did not do yesterday.  Northants took wickets consistently, no partnership settled, although everyone of them entered the zone where that starts to happen.  But every time, another man fell.

But we don have prospects right down the line and out came Ian Blackwell to star in another 40plus partnership before SJ went to Brown for another 50 and a bit (55).  Now we started to need Blacky to stay around.  He's joined by AL but 42 runs later (and Larry has only contributed 16 off 49 balls) he is LBW and Rob Turner joins the party with us still under 300.  Panic starts to set in amongst the supporting public. But Blacky nurses us to 300.  Then loses his own wicket just when we need to get moving for another 50 plus score (59).  Gareth Andrew continues his nightmare with a first ball duck and it's left for Johnson and Turner to push us towards the Northants score and close the gap we are obvioulsy going to leave.  46 runs later Johnno is run out but he was the only one to score his runs at more than a run a ball.  Nixon  helps add another 10 and Noddy is left not out with 27.  Solid, but toooooooo slow.

Three scores over 50, none over 60.  Six partnerships over 40 but only one over 50.  Those are the statistical differences between these two sides.  We lost wickets more frequently and no-one got in big.  We scored 356 on 93 but lost a wicket roughly every half hour.  We finished 52 short and had 8 overs at them before the close of play.

And we got something.  It's also good that it came to Gareth Andrew who finished off Shafayet's match with a massive score of 12 runs by having him caught by Wood for 4.  However, Love is still there and there are dangers to come.  Northants finished on 25 for 1 and we need to make in-roads tomorrow morning to keep in this game.  The home side are just in front, we need some more guys!!

Day 3

Early wickets are the order for today.  The weather is a hell of a lot better in the South West so it's not going to save our bacon this time.  We simply have to get our digits out of our posteriors and win this one through effort and application.  We need the points and they are a better batting side than they are a bowlng one.  Therefore the plan is simple, get them out for not a lot and then put them away on Day 4.

Johnson looks doubtful, he seems to have developed a side strain in sympathy with Mr C and we may not see much of him with the ball.  A shame because it puts pressure on the newbies.  Gareth Andrew, who will not want to rememer much of the first sessions, now as to lead this attack and do what he as shown he can do in one day games, take wickets.  Aaron Laraman needs to support more than he did in the first innings, early on. Nixon McLean needs to rough them up and keep thm from settling so that we can then ask the slow guys to put the pressure on and make them make mistakes.

Well that was the plan...and guess what?  They actually applied it!!  Gareth used the pitch and got after them with Louw going early to him and White being dismissed by his West Indian team-mate before they passed 50.  In fact the'd also lost Afzaal, also to Andrew before that landmark arrived.  Just what the doctor requested!!

AL then weighed in wth the big ones.  First he had Sales and then, importantly, Northants last real hope - Love - with the score on a mere 73.  nce the pace guys had riped the heart out, Burnsy chipped in with two for 12 off 6.5!!  Just what you need as backup figures because in between his two, Blackwell took two in two balls and we said goodbye to the nice Northants batsmen with a round 100 on the board!! 153 to win and a day and a half to do it in - could we mess this up?

Well we've got less than the opponents on a winning pitch before and no-one was expecing anything when Wood went with 6 on the board.  With that probably went his chance to play alongside Smith in Leicestershire., but a promising first innings keeps him in the picture.  Burns and Francis  pulled it around though with a 'just what we needed' partnership of 112 before the old man was LBW 2 short of a deserved 50.  SJ helped Frank to get us within spitting distance before we had the collapse we always have to have in a Somerset innings as niether of the two saw us home, both going at 144 with the younger Francis brother producing another 50plus score - he really is becoming the backbone of our batting in every way.

Hildreth and Blackwell delivered the 'coup de grace' and we took the lions share of points and our first Championship win of the season.  It wasn't against the strongest opposition, but it was from behind the eight ball (sorry LoL) and we did show excellent appplication.  One of the most satisfying aspects, was the fightback by Gareth Andrew after a torrid start to his four day career and the way all the other guys rallied around and did their jobs once he had stuck the knife well and truly in.

Good solid team performance...there needs to be about another 10 of these!!  Brilliant, well done everyone.

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