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Yorkshire suffer devastating setback as Somerset triumph
Somerset v Yorkshire county championship JUST when you thought you had seen it all, just when you thought Yorkshire's season could not get any worse, it ventured into the realms of the ridiculous last night when they lost one of the most remarkable matches that cricket has known.
After setting Somerset 476 to win from 90 overs, a target that should have been way beyond the home team and which appeared to have given Yorkshire a good chance of avoiding the ignominy of setting a club record of 18 successive first-class games without a victory, Yorkshire watched in horror as Somerset crept home by four wickets with 4.3 overs to spare.
Somerset's 479-6 was the second-highest run-chase in Championship history, the fourth-highest winning score in English first-class cricket and the eighth-highest in the world.
Only Middlesex have made a bigger winning total in the domestic competition, scoring 502-6 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1925 on the back of an unbeaten double century by Patsy Hendren.
How Yorkshire can recover from such a devastating setback is anyone's guess.
To lose a match in which they had by no means disgraced themselves was one thing, for it must be stressed Yorkshire played some good cricket for long periods and held a first innings lead of 112.
But to lose it in a manner that almost beggared belief was quite another and ushered closer the grim threat of relegation, even with more than half the Championship season remaining.
Somerset's hero was Peter Trego, who thrashed the fastest first-class hundred of the summer from just 54 balls to finish unbeaten on 103.
The all-rounder bludgeoned nine sixes, six fours and meted out some ferocious treatment to Yorkshire's young bowlers, who strayed in line and length in the face of a withering onslaught.
Trego caned 25 runs off a single over from Ajmal Shahzad, whom he later claimed had given him a few verbals which meant the ball "suddenly turned from a pea to a balloon", and struck Shahzad for two sixes.
He also hit three sixes off Steve Patterson and two off Azeem Rafiq and James Lee in a breathtaking display that had the locals purring.
Earlier, Arul Suppiah struck a career-best 131 and Marcus Trescothick 96 – the latter narrowly missing out on his second century of the game – as the openers gave Somerset the perfect platform, adding 187 in 42 overs.
Former Yorkshire pace bowler David Stiff – promoted to No 4 in a bold move by Somerset captain Justin Langer – creamed a career-best 49 off 34 deliveries with four sixes and four fours, while there were useful contributions from Langer himself and Zander de Bruyn, the latter striking the winning runs when he deposited Rafiq for six over mid-wicket.
Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire's director of professional cricket, admitted his side could now become embroiled in a relegation fight following a defeat that will have a shattering effect on morale.
"It's looking that way," said Moxon, whose team have not won in the Championship since their previous visit to Taunton 13 months ago.
"It's going to be a tough battle now for the rest of the summer, without a doubt, and we've got to fight really hard to turn things around.
"Obviously it was bitterly disappointing to lose this game but it wasn't for the want of trying.
"We could quite easily have batted for most of the day and picked up 12 points for a draw, but at least we went down trying to win."
To some observers, Yorkshire's decision to extend their second innings into the fourth morning smacked of an overly-cautious approach, bearing in mind they led by 441 overnight and were anxious to avoid the unwanted 18-match record.
They batted for a further 17 minutes at the start of the day, scoring 34 runs in 4.4 overs before captain Anthony McGrath called a halt to proceedings with Jonathan Bairstow unbeaten on 66.
Pretty soon, however, the question as to whether McGrath had given his bowlers enough time to dismiss Somerset on an excellent pitch was quickly superseded by that of whether his declaration had, in fact, been overly generous.
It was not, of course, but the balance soon shifted as Trescothick and Suppiah steered Somerset into lunch on 123-0 off 25 overs.
Yorkshire succeeded in stemming the scoring rate a touch during the afternoon, with Matthew Hoggard to the fore as he captured three wickets to follow his five in the first innings, but Somerset always kept themselves within range.
When Craig Kieswetter was bowled by Rafiq to leave Somerset 338-5 in the 71st over, Yorkshire must have thought they had done at least enough to escape with a draw.
But Trego had other ideas as he ripped into the bowling and, in the final insult to Yorkshire, no sooner had the teams left the field than the heavens opened.
chris.waters@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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