v Leicestershire @ Oakham School CC2 June 1 2005

Scorecard

So, the mighty South African finally gets onto a pitch in Somerset whites.  My information is that he will not captain as he only arrives in the country early Wednesday morning and wants to have a look at what he has inherited.  Rob Turner will be in charge...well for a short while anyway.  If it is anything like our 'non captain' Ricky Ponting last season, advice will be flowing from certain quarters and will be listened to intently!

We are still understrength and smarting from the bad loss in the TSL on Monday.  The squad announced will include

Sanath Jayasuriya, Matt Wood, John Francis, Mike Burns, Ian Blackwell, Graeme Smith, Rob Turner, Aaron Laraman, Gareth Andrew, Simon Francis, Nixon McLean and Arul Suppiah.  Arul will be 12th man and James Hildreth will join the squad if SJ is still feeling his wrist.

If we win the toss and bat, then jet lagged Smith will come in lower down the order but the rest of it is a bit of a mixed bag.  James Hildreth is surprisingly left out in favour of Matt Wood although that could be because of the doubt over Jayasuriya who is still recovering from a wrist injury.  If the Sri lankan plays he will open, probably with Matt and then Francis J.  That will put Burns at 4 with Blackwell and the new man at 5 and 6 (in what ever order you like).  One would expect Aaron Laraman to take spot 7 and Rob T to take 8.  That would leave Gareth Andrew followed by Simon Francis with Nixon McLean back in at number 11.

Hilda won't play if the little man is fit and one would assume that everyone will move up one if we lose the toss and bat second whereupon Mr Smith will open with his international compardre!  If SJ is out then Smith will simply replace him and Hildy will come in one side of Blacky or the other. 

All a bit complicated and probably totally wrong.  Let's hope this Leicestershire pitch is a bit better than the last one we played on and that we have learned some lessons from the Northants match on how to win four day games.  I'm sure the man from the sun will tell us if we're doing it wrong!! 

The Game

No play Day1 which was good and bad for us.  Bad because we had no chance to get into them on and good because it meant that our new boss got there (after the start of play though) and could settle in and start the game in the right position and not entirely from scratch.  After the announcements on the official site, the onslaught of the weather changed the plans.  Because Smith could start as an opener, an opener was dropped and Matt Wood sits out another game.  James Hildreth came in even though Sanath was fit to play.

We lost the toss and they put us in the field on Day 2 and Maddy and Robinson started briskly and without too much trouble, taking the Tigers to 91 before we made a breakthrough.  When it came it went to Aaron Laraman who took out the dangerous Maddy and was followed almost immediately by Francis doing the same to his opening partner.  We seemed to be on even more of a roll when AL had Maunders, the new man, caught behind with only one to his name and a total of 95.  Another Leicestershire collapse perhaps?

Well it didn't come quite then as Mongia and Ackerman put the brakes on and built a tight partnership of 45 in the face of some accurate bowling.  Nixon Mclean was particularly thirfty given the impression people have of him that he leaks runs.  He certainly was doing his job on this morning and when he dismissed Mongia at 140 and had Sadler caught by Blackwell first ball we really were in amongst them.

But once again, Leicestershire rallied with Ackerman battening down the hatches and being supported by the embattled tail.  We had to wait for another 51 runs before we had another bout of wickets from another bowler.  This time, Ian Blackwell was the wicket taker, having Nixon caught by Frank Senior with 191 on the board and sending the big hitting Gibson back 4 balls later LBW without a run to his name.

7 down and not over 200, we must have thought we had got back the time lost from Day 1.  But Ackerman was still there and the tail was still giving us trouble.  We had used 8 bowlers, including the boss turning his arm over (4 for 12).  We failed again to dislodge the back end of an innings. Henderson dug in and worked for his strike partner and Ackerman continued to push the score along.  20, 30, 50 runs were added and they were still there - so many times this year we have had teams on the ropes and not been able to finish them off as the tail has wagged unmercifully.  Here we were again.

At the end of the day, the two players had added 103 with Ackerman still there on 112.  The bowling wasn't bad, four men got in the wickets, the best figures were probably from the oft criticised West Indian (I am at a loss to know why we mistrust his ability) with 2 for 29 off 12 but others did well, Laraman put in a good first spell and then kept it up this time with his 2 for 55 off 18.  Frank Senior is a much better four day man than he used to be but the leegwork was done by Blackwell with 2 for 61 off 23 overs of spin.

Not a great day because we should be in whittling down their score but we still have them at less than 300 with only 3 wickets left.  Good conditions and weather tomorrow and a quick clean-up and we can look to get ourselves in a winning position in this game...we really have to work for that.

Day 3

We really needed to get amonsgt them early but although Frank got Ackerman quite quickly, hhe had added 119 with Henderson and he went on to add another 28 and pass 60 with the last two men.  Finally we faced 338 to make a game of it - we fail to clear the tail too often and they add the runs that take games away from us.  It isn't so much the man in form that does it, we leave him with partners for too long and we suffer because of it.  Nixon seems to be injured because he bowls no balls at all today but creditable returns by Blackwell, Laraman and Francis.

Mr Smith strides out with John Francis to start his first Somerset reply but it doesn't look like he'll be making a massive impression with the bat in his first outing as he becomes Leicestershire's and Otis Gibson's first victim with 10 to his name and 12 to the county - clean bowled.  Welcome to county cricket Graeme!

Unfortunately, any hopes he had that he would be the only early wicket were soon dashed as John F returns at 20 a victim of Willoughby.  Burns and Sanath have been here before however and they start to re-stabalise.  They even nearly do it but SJ is out just after the 50 castled by Maddy.  And then the roof falls in!

Hildreth manages a massive 13, Blackwell is out for 0, first ball, both to Gibson.  The only fight we seem to put up is extinguished when Burns dies for 24 at 89.  Then Turner, Andrew, Laraman and McLean all roll over for 16 and we are ALL OUT FOR 105!!

I wonder if Smiffy knows enough English swear words to express his delight at this?  I wonder if the side know any Afrikaans (not sure he speaks it but I bet he know some - I bet they do now as well)!!  This is appalling for a team who can find new depths of appalling that we rarely dream of!  We are following on 233 behind and the game has gone!  The only thing we can hope is that it rains or someone gets thier backside in gear and bats out the final day after we stumble to 20 odd by the end of the third!!

Day 4

Grind it out boys, that is all you can do!  90 plus overs to face and no hope of winning.  It starts to look like one of those days when Smith goes again early.  He made 9 so his Championship total to date is 19 and we needed a lot more from him.  Burns replaces him and tries to score the slowest 50 in history...just what we need! He nearly does it too because he takes 33 overs and 4 balls to make 59 but he does put on 147 with Frank Junior in 4 and a half hours of cricket with only 12 boundaries.  Herculean efforts!  Jayasuriya wants to score faster and sets off at a run a ball.  But as he is only in for 9 balls before Robinson catches him off Henderson, it is neither here or there really.

It falls to James Hildreth to partner the Somerset hero past his hundred and to the end of play.  John F sees us home with 104 and the game ends in a draw with Somerset on 225. A draw which keeps us above them, two from the bottom of the table and further away from Durham at the top.  We are going the right way but too damn slowly and I think GS may have seen what he is up against, but also what he has if he gets it working properly.

Not a great result but at least we didn't collapse twice!!

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