Not enough - bye bye 12 points!
Top Scores in vain
By Grockle
April 21 2003
Nine runs the margin but not in our favour. Despite robust batting from Bowler and Cox we start on the losing side. The bowlers did enough but the batting was once again inconsistent and we lost it on Day 1!
v GLOUCESTERSHIRE CC2 @ Bristol 18 April 2003
DAY ONE |
DAY TWO |
DAY THREE |
DAY FOUR |
SCORECARD |
'Points West' were right it seems. We were not good enough to close the game against Gloucestershire and although we came damn close - 9 runs - we lose the first Championship game of the new season. At the start of the day we needed 184 off over 100 overs with 8 wickets in hand to hit the target of 283. What happened?
Bowler made his 50 in slow and steady manner - there was no reason to rush, the run rate wasn't a problem and there were plenty of overs to spare. Unfortunately, that was all he did make as he became a victim of Smith and not hitting a ball that was hitting the stumps! 124 for 3. Jamie Cox had also carefully played himself in and seemed to be on to make a decent score. He saw the side past 200 but then fell to Mark Alleyne, doing the same as Mr Bowler. James Bryant had been playing a supportive role for the Australian and probably expected to do the same for Ian Blackwell once he got his eye in. He was in double figures, Blackwell had just arrived and we needed another 80 to win the game with 6 wickets left.
I wonder what went through his mind when Blackwell departed 2 balls later without troubling the scorer caught behind off Alleyne? Well he seems to have thought about it for about 20 minutes before he went the same way for 31 with the score on 229. No worries yet, we bat well down and even with 6 down we still had Turner and Laraman at the crease - 54 wasn't beyond them. Whoops, wrong again. Rob managed only 15 before he became Sillence's (who is this guy?) first second innings victim - 237 - 46 runs needed. Laraman stayed around for a while for 23, then he became Sillence's second victim and we were in it to our chins at 262 for 8 - 21 needed from the heroes of the game. Johnson was in with McLean - the century maker and the five-fer debutant - could they pull this one out of the fire? Nope! McLean helped put on 9 before Smith got him to snick one and Francis gave Sillence his third wicket 3 runs later. 274 all out -defeat from the jaws of victory!
Exciting but not the start we wanted. We lost it in our first innings tally. In spite of the collosal batting performance of Richard Johnson there were too few runs on the board from our established line-up. It was the problem of last year and it looks like there is still work to do. If the top five had provided the 150+ in the first innings then we could have pushed this game out of Gloucestershire's reach and left it to the bowlers who did a sterling job in all cases. All four seamers contributed with the ball but it was left to the middle and lower order to shore up one innings yet again and we have paid for that.
Stage One of this campaign was to win here. Stage Two is to win at Taunton in the Championship and we now need to do that in order to redress this defeat. Pick yourselves up everyone and let's give Durham a pasting for five days!
Somerset Man of the Match - Richard Johnson