V Northamptonshire CC2 @ Northampton 3 - 6 May 2006

Scorecard

What an intriguing day.  Somerset went into this one without Ian Blackwell, the back spasms still need some work it seems and without Richard Johnson who may have been struggling on Monday and will still be smarting from the treatment dished out by the Gloucestershire boys.  But we did welcome Dan Cullen from his Bangla bash with the Aussie test side - a chance to see an attacking spinner in county colours?  Worth the slog to Northampton for some I would have thought.

So the side was;

Trescothick, Wood(capt), Francis J, Hildreth, White, Durston,Trego, Gazzard, Caddick, Willoughby, Cullen with Rob Woodman as twelfth man because it was seen as important that Gareth Andrew played in the seconds and kept himself sharp. Good idea.  We won the toss and inserted ourselves - a decision greeted with wholehearted applause by the majority of us scoreboard watchers.

I've expressed my concerns about our front five and about the thought that needs to go into its composition when Marcus T returns to England after this game.  We lose too many early wickets and usually, a tickle becomes a flood unless one of the first five (and it is nearly always only one) actually hits a big score.  It stems from not having a stable and dependable number 3 batsman.  John Francis presently holds that place and is struggling to find his form.  When MT leaves, it seems to be assumed that he will return to the number 2 position and partner his captain in opening.  If he does that then the number 3 spot becomes more problematic as a "Number 3" replacement doesn't exactly jump off the squad list.

We are losing a wicket quite regularly within the first hour (if we are lucky) of an innings.  There is no time for the opening partnership to settle and the third batsman is in before the shine is off the ball or the dew is off the pitch. At the moment, should he also fail, we are into our stroke players far too early.  John may be out of position at number 3 and may be just waiting to return to the openers spot.  If he does, who will take that place?  Matt Wood may feel that he should but if he moves down a spot, where is the confident opener to partner a man who needs to find his form? With James Hildreth still finding his feet at 4, we need a steady hand in this pivot.  Two options suggest themselves. 

Arul Suppiah was tried successfully in this position last season.  He may be injured, he may be waiting to fill that position after this game.  He has to be given the opportunity to try.  Neil Edwards is an opener, he has been tried, he has been retained this season after making no significant push for a place in the first team line-up last year.  I ask myself why that is the situation.  Surely he must make a push for a place this year and if he does it would be in that trio of frontline batsmen.  We have to sort out his problem, especially if our Championship campaign isn't to falter early in 2006.  I suppose we will have some of the answers after this match but for now the problem persists.....

OR  OR  OR  OR......??

Day 1

Wood chose to bat and I wonder how long it took before he wished he had made another choice?  He had plenty of time to ponder it as he went to an LBW decision with the score on 2.  He may have discussed it with Frank Junior when he returned to the changing room with 27 on the card and after White and Trescothick got the score up to nearly 3 figures, they could have had an almost complete meeting to the batsmen when the Australian (26) and Wes Durston (2) were dismissed without breaking the 100 boundary. Klusener and Philips made the initial inroads into our line-up but it was then the spinners who took over as we continued to lose wickets on a regular basis.  The only man standing between Somerset and another embarrassing batting display was the man who can never be written off - the Magnificent Trescothick.  With Gazzard and Trego going cheaply and not even 150 up, it was left to the England opener to shrug off early poor figures.  With the dogged support of Andy Caddick (becoming a bit of an allrounder Andrew!) and the lowly rated (with a bat) Cullen) he pushed the score on from 141 for 7 to 186 for 8 with AC and then to 249 for 9 with the younger Aussie before finally going to Brown for 154 off 193 balls with a huge 26 fours.  More than half our score from one man with five other players failing to reach double figures!  Only Cullen, White and Caddick supported the big man effectively as Brown (significant with 5 for 82) and Panesar (supporting with 1 for 52) cleaned most of the Somerset second half up relatively cheaply.

It's always good to have someone commenting who actually was there when it's report by scorecard so here's Bobstan's take on the Trescothick innings

"I had a magical day at Wantage Road today. Okay, I know that there are various Somerset problems, but the weather was lovely, the company was congenial, and Marcus was magnificent.

The group of Northants supporters with whom I sat said before the start that they wanted Marcus to get a fifty and then get out. In fact the crowd were very supportive and appreciative of Marcus all through, acknowledging his various milestones with genuine warmth. He was dropped once, and there was also a missed stumping off Jason Brown, but once he got going his timing was superb, and he even moved his feet!

My only criticism of Marcus would be that when he got to 100 or so he went into 'hit out or get out' mode. This was perfectly justifiable until Dan Cullen came in. He showed himself to be a batsman of potential, and when that became clear perhaps Marcus could have gone back to playing conventionally, and thus prolonged the innings.

The pitch was damp early on, and there seemed to be some unpredictable bounce, with some balls keeping very low. I'm not sure that this explains the dismissals of two batsmen lbw not playing a stroke. I was also disappointed that Cam White - clearly a fine striker of a cricket ball - played as if it were a one-day game, getting out to what seemed to be an unnecessary and irresponsible shot.

I know it's too early really to draw any conclusions about Cullen, but on this one day's evidence I think Ned seems spot-on. He is a wicket taker. He caused the batsmen frequent trouble, not just with his wicket-taking deliveries. I also loved his great enthusiasm. He may be the most fervent appealer since the great Mushie! He also joked about his own appealing with our old friend, Umpire Roy Palmer, which was good to see.

It was interesting to hear the views of the Northants supporters about their own spinners. They unanimously feel that unless Monty can introduce more variety into his repertoire he will be found out this season.
Once again Jason Brown showed why they think so highly of him. What a pity he is not 6 or 7 years younger.

Watching a master batsman at work is not a bad way to spend a day..."

Not a great score but spinners having a good day suggested we may be able to get among them as well. As with our innings, pace got amongst them early as Willoughby shrugged off Monday with an early wicket dismissing White courtesy of our new arrivals safe hands.  It was then Cullen who seemed to show how he is different from our spin attack of past years and (hopefully) ready to bring back the attacking days of a certain small Pakistan spinner who only needs to remain nameless because we all know who he was.  Are there shade of Mushy in this guy?  Well he takes wickets it seems.  He took his first domestic scalp when he had Rogers LBW with Northants on 41 but before the close he got a more important one in the context of this game dismissing Afzaal in the mid twenties with only 87 in the bank.  Tomorrow we need to see the back of Sales and a certain L.Klusener as cheaply in order to make our first innings score significant.

We are losing a batting asset as he comes into his prime for 2006.  But have we found a spin bowling asset that may balance the side and give us something we need?  Day 2 will give us a bit more information with which to answer that question.

Day 2

Well the answer to the question above seems to be 'Most Certainly!".  Dan Cullen seems to be quite a lot of what we had been promised.  A debut five-fer was a bright spot in a generally poor day for us.  With just over a hundred on the board and three gone we were looking to capitalise, get to Klusener, get rid of him and whip through the backend of the Northants batting line-up.  We came face to face with Bilal Shafayat and his well crafted 101 off 256 balls.  No swing and the bowlers toiling on the warmest day of the year so far.

The other problem was that the home side gave ample support to the higher scores.  David Sales sold his wicket dearly for 88 and although White was supporting his own countryman in getting rid of them, it is slow and expensive going. While the tail doesn't get a lot themselves, they hang around while Lance gets them instead.  147 off 184 balls  for the man coming in at number 7 does not help our cause one bit. and 73 run partnerships with Nicholson (26) and especially the 42 run 9th wicket one with Brown (3) are particularly galling.  What do ya do one apitch where the swing is gone?

Well you wheel away for 43 overs and take 5 for 137 if you are our new Aussie - comendable effort.  Why you don't bowl your third spinner Wes Durston until the 100th over, I can't realy explain. Especially when he comes on and bowls 8 overs, 2 maidens and takes 1 for 10 when you do use him.  Meanwhile Caddy and Charl run in manfully for 42 overs, take 2 wickets and go for 157 runs.  What you hope for is a tight and effective field - we didn't get that yesterday.  The run total for the home side was aided by our inability to hold four catches - how different would it have been this morning if we had?

So 449 plays 258 then with half an hour to go of the day.  A lead of 191 is eaten into by 23 but for the loss of Marcus C&B Phillips before the end.  A long day of demanding cricket in front of Matt Wood and the remaining boys on Day 3.

Day 3

Boy do we have things to sort out.  Another abject batting display later and we are leaving Northampton at the wrong end of an innings and 46 run defeat.  Monty Panesar with a five-fer ably supported by Brown, Phillips and Nicholson - AND our seeming inability to stabalise and accumulate a score.

Except for Durston's 41, there isn't a lot to report on in the Somerset second innings.  Not having been there I can't put the total of 145 all out down to batting errors or pitch discrepencies or bowling excellence.  It is all imaterial at the moment because the crux of the matter is that we need to find a way to produce the same performances as our opponents on the wicket they play on!  It will be interesting what the officials at the club and the independent reporters put this one down to.  The pitch obviously turned and that would make Brown and Panesar a handful.  BUT it should also have made Cullen and White and Durston an equal handful but the Northants line-up provided more support for their big hitters and that's where the 150 lead which murdered us came from.

Yes, our batsmen are out of form but that is a problem not an excuse.  They need to find form and find it extemely quickly if our Championship run is not to be over before the darling buds of May.

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