TEAM NEWS
Essex: Paul Walter, Dean Elgar, Wiaan Mulder, Charlie Allison, Matt Critchley, Luc Benkenstein, Michael Pepepr (WK), Simon Harmer, Shane Snater, Sam Cook (C), Jamie Porter.
Somerset: Josh Thomas, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Tom Lammonby, James Rew (WK), Tom Abell, Lewis Goldsworthy, Craig Overton, Migael Pretorius, Jack Leach, Josh Shaw, Jake Ball.
MATCH DETAILS
Umpires: Michael Gough & Steve O'Shaughnessy
Match Referee: James Whittaker
Toss: Somerset won the toss and elected to bowl
Result: Somerset won by 10 wickets.
DAY THREE REACTION
DAY THREE HIGHLIGHTS
DAY THREE REPORT
Craig Overton produced a consummate all-round captain’s performance to lead Somerset to a comfortable 10-wicket Rothesay County Championship victory over Essex with more than four sessions to spare.
Standing in as captain in the absence of the injured Lewis Gregory, Overton stepped up to the mark in all departments of the game: he top-scored with a second career century, led the attack with four wickets and claimed a catch as well as calling correctly at the toss to get an important first use of a green-tinged pitch.
The 32-year-old one-time England seamer put the skids under Essex at the start of the third day by removing the two set overnight batsmen, Matt Critchley and Paul Walter, in quick succession after a promising stand of 96. Already 199 runs behind on first innings, Essex never really recovered.
Set 47 to win, Somerset took just 15 minutes and 5.4 overs to reach the target amid a flurry of boundaries. Somerset injury substitute Archie Vaughan, with a point to prove after being sidelined so far this season, was certainly in no mood to hang around. He took 19 off just five balls of a Sam Cook over and then twice launched Simon Harmer over midwicket for six on the way 41 from 25 balls.
Somerset had been forced into a second injury substitution in the match when Lewis Goldsworthy had to be replaced after tweaking his hamstring the day before. Tom Kohler-Cadmore, remember, had been ruled out with a badly bruised thumb on the first morning with Will Smeed racing over from a second-team game in Abergavenny to take his place.
Vaughan, the 13th player Somerset had to mobilise, was involved as early as the 15th ball of the morning, swooping low to his left at second slip to snaffle Critchley.
Critchley had added just six to his overnight total and had looked to be easing Essex back into the game in a solid partnership with Walter. However, that impression quickly evaporated as the Somerset seamers found renewed life in a pitch that had seemed to flatten out on day two.
With only nine more runs added, Walter followed Critchley back to the pavilion, caught and bowled off a leading edge to give Overton a second wicket in the first 25 minutes.
When Overton gave himself a well-earned rest, he had morning figures of 2-14 from five overs. But even before he handed over the ball to Josh Shaw, the captain had a third wicket involvement of the day. Ten balls after Walter’s dismissal, Overton stooped low at second slip to remove Michael Pepper for nought off Jake Ball.
Essex were still seven runs short of making Somerset bat again when Wiaan Mulder’s brave rearguard action was ended. The South African, who had been suffering with back spasms, chose not to ignore a short-pitch delivery from Migael Pretorius and attempted an ill-advised hook that flew off the top-edge through to the wicketkeeper. Mulder remained rooted to the crease for several seconds while Somerset whooped and hollered as he contemplated the merit of his shot selection.
Overton’s only blemish of the whole game came at 198-7 when he dropped Shane Snater on four at second slip off Pretorius.
Essex limped into a nebulous lead with the aid of a leg-bye before Simon Harmer’s late resistance was curtailed when Shaw had him plumb lbw. That Essex made it to lunch was due to some spirited hitting from ninth-wicket pair Shane Snater and Cook.
As the ball softened, they extended the innings 20 minutes into the afternoon session before Cook, defending a lifter from Ball, nicked behind. The end followed swiftly as Pretorius had Snater picked up at midwicket to finish with 3-64.
DAY TWO REACTION
DAY TWO HIGHLIGHTS
DAY TWO REPORT
Craig Overton put Somerset in a dominant position against Essex at Chelmsford with the highest score of an illustrious first-class career built largely on his skills with the ball rather than the bat.
The stand-in captain walked out on Friday evening with Somerset creaking at 114-5, still 35 runs behind Essex’s first innings, but had more than doubled the score in three-and-a-half hours at the crease by the time he was out for 141 in mid-afternoon. In partnerships of 98 with Lewis Goldsworthy and 118 with Will Smeed, Overton helped Somerset establish a 199-run lead.
It was a decade ago that the then 22-year-old Overton scored his only previous century, 138 against Hampshire, though he has been in formidable form with the bat in recent times: he has passed fifty in four of his last six Rothesay County Championship innings, stretching back to September, and 219 runs in three innings this season. His 180-ball ton included 19 fours and three sixes.
In response, Essex lost three wickets in the first 15 overs of their second innings before Paul Walter and Matt Critchley settled into a defiant fourth-wicket stand currently worth 86 runs either side of a 53-minute rain delay. Both batsmen timed the ball nicely with Walter reaching his first fifty of the season and Critchley hitting nine fours in his half-century. Essex closed on 131-3.
That Overton as captain had the Midas touch was evidenced when he won the toss on a bowler-friendly green-top. It continued when Essex batted again when he called up Jack Leach for a short, pre-tea spell and saw the spinner remove Dean Elgar with his sixth delivery, held low down at mid-on.
Then, straight after the interval, a switch of ends for Migael Pretorius led to Luc Benkenstein driving loosely at a wide ball that ended up in the wicketkeeper’s gloves. Charlie Allison departed without scoring when he dabbed Jake Ball into the slips.
However, it was a day all about Craig Overton as batsman. It had initially been a more circumspect Devonian than on the previous evening when his first fifty had taken just 33 balls. On a now lifeless pitch, and under gloomy skies, he was content on a no-risk policy while building a solid advantage.
With Goldsworthy, Overton took that advantage to 63 before the stand was broken nearly an hour and 15 overs into the morning. Goldsworthy, who batted with Tom Lammonby as a runner after tweaking a hamstring before play, left his bat hanging out and was caught behind off Jamie Porter.
That brought in Smeed, the injury substitute for Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who damaged a thumb in taking a catch the previous morning, for his first-class debut. Smeed, a white-ball specialist, had decided recently to expand his career into the red-ball sphere. He took time to acclimatise, using up 18 balls before getting off the mark.
Overton may have slowed down his strike rate appreciably, but he still allowed himself the luxury of lofting Simon Harmer for another straight six. A single turned into the legside off the same bowler brought up his three-figures from 136 balls and a celebratory fist pump as he reached the non-striker’s end.
The arrival of the second new-ball signalled an upturn in the rate of scoring with 50 runs added in seven overs, with nine boundaries, before Overton’s epic effort was ended when he played down the wrong line to Shane Snater and was lbw. Without a run added Smeed was strangled down the legside by Cook to claim his third wicket.
Porter and Snater followed suit with their third wickets to wrap up the Somerset innings in the space of five balls: Pretorius thick-edged to first slip and Ball fall to a catch at third slip.
DAY ONE REACTION
DAY ONE HIGHLIGHTS
DAY ONE REPORT
On a surreal day of 15 wickets on a capricious Chelmsford wicket, Somerset had red-ball wannabee Will Smeed racing across the breadth of the country from east Wales to take up injury substitute duties in the Rothesay County Championship.
Smeed, 24 and yet to make his first-class debut despite plentiful experience in white-ball cricket, had just posted an unbeaten 209 for Somerset seconds against Cardiff students at Abergavenny when he got the call that he was required to come over and replace Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who had damaged his hand taking a catch.
At one point it looked to be touch and go whether Smeed, who wants to expand his career into the longer format, would make it in time to bat in the first innings as Essex threatened to run through Somerset, just as Somerset had done to the Essex batting earlier in the day.
Essex had collapsed from a comparatively healthy 77-2 nine balls before lunch to 149 all out by mid-afternoon, Josh Shaw wrapping up the innings with figures of 3-30 on his debut after moving from Gloucestershire. That Somerset did not fall apart after being 16-3, and had reached 179-5 at the close, was largely down to James Rew, who accumulated a patient 48, and the some big-hitting by stand-in captain Craig Overton, who was unbeaten on 50 from 36 balls.
At the start of an eventful day in front of a bumper crowd of 3,128, it had taken just eight overs for Overton’s decision to bowl first on a green-tinged wicket to bear fruit – and a further 43 overs to complete Essex’s downfall.
Jake Ball had looked lively from the start and make inroads with two wickets in three balls. Paul Walter had not looked particularly comfortable before falling lbw trying to whip a ball to leg that straightened. Wiaan Mulder’s first knock on home debut was over before it had begun as he received one that jumped up and took the edge to provide a catch so sharp high to Kohler-Cadmore’s right at first slip that it ended the fielder’s participation.
Dean Elgar and Charlie Allison brought a sense of relative calm to the Essex batting for 22 overs, while putting on 68 for the third wicket. But, as before, and again later, one wicket begat another.
Elgar fell into a carefully baited legside trap and chipped up tamely a Tom Lammonby delivery to the deep fine-leg boundary. Three balls later, Matt Critchley, the star turn last week in Essex’s innings victory at Hampshire with 173, tickled behind to depart without scoring.
Allison looked the most assured of the Essex batsmen, hitting six boundaries in his 49, until diverting a ball from Migael Pretorius low to first slip, a position now occupied by Tom Abell.
Michael Pepper hammered Shaw for two sumptuous cover-drives to the boundary but was bowled through the gate by Overton. The Somerset leader struck again two balls later when Simon Harmer was lbw to a ball of full length.
And it got worse for Essex with a third wicket in 10 balls as Luc Benkenstein dragged on a wide ball from Shaw, who then accounted for Shane Snater and Jamie Porter.
Somerset sent in Jack Leach to open with Kohler-Cadmore now unavailable but the ploy failed as the erstwhile No11 was bowled to his 12th ball by a straight one from Porter. Lammonby went in short order, edging Essex captain Sam Cook low to first slip. And they were quickly three down when Josh Thomas nicked Cook.
Abell and Rew steadied things either side of tea, adding 57, before Abell nibbled at one from Snater. Rew was sensible in his resolve before Harmer turned one that took the left-hander’s outside edge. The first of two straight sixes by Overton off Harmer took Somerset into the lead.
