It was a pleasure to be back at HQ on Friday. Having been teased for the past fortnight with a pair of away games, the ‘real quiz’ has commenced. Some thoughts on Day One of Somerset’s game with Nottinghamshire below.
There was sunshine. Only - at least in the beginning - a dash of it peering out hopefully from behind light grey morning mass. Sunshine, though, nonetheless.
There was wind. A lot of it, the gargantuan white sail draped between ‘Both’ and Colin Atkinson moving merrily with the weather. Hats were, it seemed, made to be clutched tightly onto.
There were people. Plenty of them, gaggles in fact, gathered excitedly in a long, snaking line adjacent to the red-brick wall. Each had waited long enough, had wished another winter away, so that they were unhurried. Or they pretended to be, anyway.
Inside heads, you see, the first imaginary races to seats were being won. Oh the triumph. Or, if not that, then never-to-be-had arguments against the newcomer - whose lack of respect for the established pecking order is, frankly, just not cricket - were being rehearsed. Nothing like humans for manifesting unnecessary rises in blood pressure.
And then, shortly after 9.30 am, a click. Round goes the turnstile. And how the people marched, clutching bags brimming with homemade sandwiches, flasks of hot tea, Play Fairs, binoculars, fraying foam cushions for unforgiving plastic seats. The cricketing survival kit may be more Attenborough than Grylls, but it is wholly necessary.
Cricket at Taunton was back. For some – for many, in fact – those half dozen steps through the gates are a tiny action that mean so much. Home. Yes, home. And safety, and warmth (metaphorically at least), and peace, and friendship. A self-contained space free of the world’s ills. Whether the ball travels above or below 85mph is irrelevant in that context.
“Winter well?” has never been used so frequently. Old acquaintances are greeted warmly, another off-season ticked off. In some cases, survival itself is a triumph. New acquaintances? They receive the same welcome. That is the beauty of it, you see.
The air is filled with the sweet scent of budget coffee; stewards in their high-visibility jackets scuttle about trying to ensure everything is ‘so’; chief executives - incoming and outgoing - prowl the permitter, smiling, shaking hands, just being.
Then comes the bell. The cricketers follow. As do 96 enthralling overs, a battle that both ball and bat have a sniff of winning. For Somerset, it was an excellent day’s work. To dismiss Nottinghamshire for 193 would be considered successful in all circumstances. To do so, and then close trailing by just 77 with 9 wickets in hand? Well, some might consider that greedy.
The WinViz predictor has a Somerset triumph at somewhere around the 90% likelihood. Notts have too much talent, and cricket is too unpredictable, for that to be truly accurate. But it certainly represents the day’s dominance.
Yes, there were a few poor strokes, visiting skipper Haseeb Hameed the villain-in-chief. If those present at the start believed an uncharacteristic Hameed swish at Craig Overton’s first Dukes delivery of the summer would serve as a self-administered warning, they were wrong. Two balls later, Hameed’s eyes lit up again, and an expansive drive resulted in him losing his wicket.
Joe Clarke too, had looked every bit the ‘form man’ one would expect of a batter with two hundreds by mid-April. But then on 39, he flicked Shoaib Bashir to mid-wicket. Pleasing in many senses, not least because heaping too much praise on Clarke is uncomfortable.
There was some fine Somerset bowling also. Much of it, initially at least, went unrewarded. Overton will be of the firm belief that his morning’s work should have brought more gains. Instead, it was Lewis Gregory who produced a peach that Ben Slater took a juicy bite from. James Rew pouched. The following over, Gregory moved one back at Will Young’s pads. Up the finger went.
Overton gained his apples in over 50. First, Matt Montgomery – who topped scored for Nottinghamshire with 48 – and then Calvin Harrison prodded and found the hands of slip fielders. Montgomery had, on 24, reverse swept Bashir and gloved to first grabber. “Mike Tyson would have been proud of that punch,” exclaimed Pete Trego from up in the box. Alas, in this world umpire’s call is everything.
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With the bat, there was a pleasing three figure opening stand between Matt Renshaw and Sean Dickson. Number three batters, one suspects, rarely sit in complete comfort. Somerset number three batters, in the recent past, could be forgiven for being a tad jumpy. Not on Friday.
Renshaw had played within himself, waiting patiently before, 90 balls in, waltzing at Harrison and smoking a straight six. The next ball, Renshaw’s footwork was less fancy, he failed to pick Harrison, and was caught at slip.
Dickson’s beauty came in his simplicity. Of his dozen boundaries, the majority came through the off-side. He was dismissive of width, a cover drive from Dane Paterson late in the day particularly elegant. He will resume on Saturday 30 shy of a century.
Finally, spare a thought for Geoff Arnold. One of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 1972, Arnold – a former England seamer, and Surrey legend – is, despite approaching octogenarian status, currently scouting for the ECB.
His Taunton assignment was predicated on running a watchful eye over a pair of quicks with international aspirations. Their names? Kasey Aldridge and Dillon Pennington. Ah. Best laid plans, and all that.
A terrific day’s play, terrifically described.