Avoidance of innings defeat provides crumb of comfort for Taunton faithful
Lancashire 373 (Wells 103, Croft 71, Bailey 63, Bohannon 50; Brooks 4-77, Abell 3-63) and 32 for 0 beat Somerset 90 (Blatherwick 4-28, Bailey 3-9) and 314 (Lammonby 100, Azhar Ali 50; Wells 3-9)
The statisticians from cricket’s black museum were out in good numbers at Taunton today. “When did it last happen,” they asked, “that a side won three successive tosses and yet lost all three games by an innings?” You probably needed to support Somerset to risk such enquiries at the County Ground, especially on a morning when the floodlights were on and the gloomy skies matched the mood of a few locals. Autumn advances.
Jack Blatherwick completed a memorable match for him by taking two further wickets and Balderson picked up a couple more. However, by far the biggest cheer of the day came from the Somerset supporters when the innings defeat was avoided. Any tokens of misery were purely coincidental. The scoreboard in the corner by Gimblett’s Hill went completely black although that was caused by mechanical malfunction rather than contagious mourning.
Somerset, of course, have played some pretty dreadful cricket over the last fortnight and one was therefore pleased that they managed a better showing in the second innings of this match. Andy Hurry, the county’s director of cricket, faced some fairly searching questions after it all but he took his bottom hand away when quietly defending his players and such occasions should always be placed in context. Hurry is a former Royal Marine and has therefore been trained to kill enemies of the Crown. An inquisition from a gaggle of hacks is unlikely to chill his blood.
Paul Edwards is a freelance cricket writer. He has written for the Times, ESPNcricinfo, Wisden, Southport Visiter and other publications