Don't write off Somerset yet
I hope that Justin Langer's bold tactics for Somerset pay off because without some creative captaincy county cricket can at times get pretty boring. More captaincy like this will help to reduce the number of games that are engineered into creating results in an even more obvious way.
Given the batting line up Somerset have to come, and the obstinacy of people like Langer and Cameron White, a bet on Somerset may just be worth looking into...
Come back tomorrow to find out if I have egg on my face (pretty likely) or Somerset have dug themselves out of a hole. Click here to see the scorecard.
5 comments:
With 16 wickets falling in the day you'd think there was something wrong with the wicket, but there wasn't. There were some dreadful shots played and some competent but not particularly brilliant swing bowling in helpful conditions. There were a lot of lbws, all looked pretty out to me and most came from ugly-looking shots aimed towards mid-wicket to pitched-up straight deliveries that swung a bit. Don't the later batsmen watch and learn from earlier mistakes? If they don't, they should! Although I'm a Somerset member, I'm not sure I share your optimism but, weather permitting, we'll see tomorrow (correction: later today).
The latest is 50 for 5 so things don't look too good for Somerset...Langer having just got out.
Langer's declaration yesterday looks particularly ill-judged now, with Middlesex needing only 138 to win. If the last two wickets of the Somerset first innings had put on another 30 yesterday Middlesex's requirement would have looked a bit more demanding. Definitely a gamble that failed to come off.
You were there so you can tell us if his bowlers let him down at the start of Middlesex's 1st innings or if the batsman just played very well?
Bit of both. Certainly Somerset bowled more bad balls than Middlesex, and the Middlesex batsmen put them away confidently. The class bowling act of both sides was definitely Silverwood, who kept the swinging ball up to the bat and earned the reward: on this form I can't think why Yorkshire let him go. As mentioned above a number of experienced batsmen on both sides got themselves out with nasty swishes across the line.
I still don't think the early declaration can be justified on any grounds. If the game had turned out to be a low scoring game all round, the 10 runs (say) that the last two Somerset wickets might have got could have turned out to be crucial. There was no real venom in the wicket, just atmospheric conditions helping swing bowling. In general the Middlesex bowlers took more advantages of these helpful conditions. Caddick bowled too short and took no wickets out of 13; Silverwood pitched it up and took nine out of 18. That tells 80% of the story, the other 20% is probably the greater application shown by the Middlesex batsmen (but I didn't see Langer bat in either innings).
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