Hill and Bess ignite Yorkshire’s hopes of a stunning win against Somerset
GEORGE HILL and Dom Bess - Yorkshire’s cricketers of the season - took one look at an ominous scoreboard and effectively announced: “Hold our beers.”
Yorkshire were 54-6 in their second innings - just 65 in front - when they came together at 4.28pm on day two, with Somerset’s tails up as they chased what would be their maiden County Championship title.
By the time Hill was out at 1.33pm on day three for 89, his highest score of the season, they had compiled a partnership of 166 and remarkably stretched Yorkshire’s lead to 231.
If Carlsberg did seventh-wicket stands against title-chasing sides, they would surely look something like that.
Whether it proves enough to help Yorkshire to victory, time will tell. Somerset head into the final day on 73-3 in pursuit of 287 and a win that would keep them top of Division One and at least four points clear of their nearest rivals going into next week’s final round of fixtures.
This has been a compelling contest, one that has kept a weather-beaten crowd royally entertained, if in need of coats, scarves and a hot drink or five.
Bess helped himself to 77 against his former club (having made a golden duck in the first innings and bowled only the one over), a cricketer far too competent and charismatic to be kept quiet for long.
It was hardly surprising that Hill and Bess were the men to dig Yorkshire out of the mire.
Hill is both the club’s leading run-scorer and wicket-taker in this year’s competition, while Bess is second in both disciplines.
Whereas every member of the Yorkshire top-six in this match is averaging in the 20s, Hill and Bess are averaging in the mid-30s.
As a pair, they complement each other well: Hill, tall, composed and easy on the eye; Bess, shorter in stature but a bundle of energy and enthusiasm, as well as a purveyor of similarly stylish strokes.
They had shared 74 when day three started, sunny at first before it soon clouded over and the floodlights came on. There was a brief stoppage after 15 minutes - a passing shower of nuisance nature - before the pair settled back into their work, determination oozing from every pore.
Bess was struck on the left hand/forearm and also copped a blow about the midriff. Neither side gave an inch - just as the Yorkshire crowd like it.
Batting conditions looked easier than earlier in the match, although the ball was old and the skill of Hill and Bess was probably the likelier explanation. Three boundaries from Migael Pretorius’s first over of the day brought up the 100 stand, warmly applauded by the good-sized crowd.
Both batsmen played some handsome drives, slick like Brylcreem, with Somerset grateful for the new ball 20 minutes before lunch. It did not bring a breakthrough before the interval as Yorkshire advanced from 128-6 overnight to 208-6, Hill moving to within 12 of his hundred and Bess to his fifty from 130 balls.
At lunch, all the talk among the anoraks in the crowd was whether Hill and Bess would go on to beat Yorkshire’s record seventh-wicket partnership against Somerset - 180 between Cyril Turner and Arthur Wood at Sheffield in 1936.
Not quite. Turner and Wood heaved a huge sigh of relief in the great pavilion in the sky when Hill top-edged a pull off Craig Overton to wicketkeeper James Rew, the all-rounder having batted for six minutes shy of four hours.
On a day when Stephen Fleming, England’s new Test coach, dropped into Headingley, Hill’s innings was another reminder of his burgeoning quality.
Bess, too, is a better cricketer than when he last played for England in 2021, and would surely not look out of place if the call came again.
By the time Bess was bowled by Pretorius, the Yorkshire lead had risen to 250. There followed a maddening - for Somerset - ninth-wicket stand of 34 between Kuldeep Yadav and Ben Coad, which pushed the final target into increasingly demanding realms.
Eventually, Archie Vaughan ended the innings with two wickets in three balls - the first wickets, surprisingly, to spin in the match.
Coad was caught by Josh Thomas at short-leg, then Ben Cliff bowled through the gate as Yorkshire were dismissed for 275 at tea.
Coad wasted little time in damaging the Somerset chase, having Josh Thomas caught behind pushing forward at the third ball of the innings. He later bowled Vaughan shouldering arms, leaving the visitors 20-2 in the 13th over.
On a day of fleeting showers and annoying interruptions, one that was for the most part sunny but cold enough for some supporters and stewards to be wearing gloves, the left-handers Tom Lammonby and Henry Nicholls dug in to add 40 in 14 overs.
Matty Revis was too good for Nicholls, though, firing one through his defences to keep proceedings beautifully poised.