Yorkshire leave Somerset's title hopes hanging by a thread with ruthless display
THE supporters gave the players a standing ovation. The players responded in kind as they walked off the field. Imagine what it would be like if Yorkshire actually won the County Championship again. Maybe next year, dear reader, maybe next year.
Yorkshire will not be winning the title this year, of course, but, after a thumping win over Somerset by 185 runs, perhaps neither will the visitors. Their four-point lead at the top of the table going into the game has become an 11-point gap to new leaders Warwickshire at exactly the wrong time.
Whereas Warwickshire face lowly Leicestershire at Edgbaston in the final round of fixtures, starting on Thursday, Somerset take on Surrey at Taunton.
For their part, fifth-placed Yorkshire play third-placed Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire’s own title hopes having been equally rocked by a seven-wicket defeat against Sussex at Hove, which has left them 15 points behind Warwickshire.
The season promises to end with a bit of a whimper, therefore, in terms of the bigger picture, just as it did in this match in microcosm thanks to the quality of Yorkshire’s performance on day four.
The contest had been all set for a riveting climax: 214 more runs for Somerset to win, seven more wickets for Yorkshire to take - the sort of “it could go either way” proposition that makes the game compelling.
As it was, Yorkshire turned the whole thing into a non-event, taking the last seven wickets for 28 runs in 100 minutes. Somerset tumbled from 73-3 overnight to 101 all-out in pursuit of 287, then left moaning about the state of the Headingley pitch.
Ben Coad finished with 4-33 and Ben Cliff 3-29 - Cliff taking more wickets in this match (overall figures of 11-105) than he had previously managed in his first-class career.
What a performance it was from him, in particular, as well as from George Hill and Dom Bess in the context of a game in which Yorkshire found themselves staring down the barrel at one point at 54-5 in their second innings, just 65 in front.
Hill and Bess then combined in a partnership of 166 that turned the match on its head and pushed the Somerset target into difficult realms.
That they came nowhere near it said little for their ability to cope with the pressure of trying to win what would be their first County Championship, an apparently endless quest.
The skies were cloudy and the floodlights were on when the players walked out on a fresh Friday morning.
The wind had dropped slightly from earlier in the game, but it was hardly cricket-watching weather for the die-hards in the crowd, some of whom were dressed more for a football fixture in winter.
Only three runs were scored in the first five overs, a drab run-rate in keeping with the overhead conditions. That was overwhelmingly due to the accuracy of Yorkshire’s bowling, though, which was deservedly rewarded with a rat-a-tat of wickets as Somerset imploded.
The first to fall was Tom Lammonby, the left-hander edging behind a back-foot defensive stroke at Cliff.
Lammonby’s 32 in just under two-and-a-half hours of batting in total would prove the highest score of the Somerset innings; he was one of only three players to achieve double figures.
Lammonby’s wicket was followed in the next over by that of Tom Abell, the other unbeaten batsman overnight, who got a ball from Coad that popped up and flew gently to Will Luxton at point. Somerset lost a third wicket in 22 deliveries when James Rew tried to drive Coad through the offside but succeeded only in edging to second slip, where Adam Lyth made no mistake. Rew was gone for an 11-ball duck and Somerset had sunk to 79-6.
There remained, however, the threat of Craig Overton.
Scourge of Yorkshire in this season’s Vitality Blast quarter-final here, and the top-scorer in Somerset’s first innings with a fine 64, Overton was hardly incapable of something outrageous.
Instead, with only five to his name, he pushed at one from Cliff and was caught behind to leave Somerset 87-7 and the match all over bar the shouting. Cliff’s tenth wicket was thus celebrated with additional gusto - the second time in successive games that a Yorkshire bowler had claimed a ten-fer after Kuldeep Yadav against Essex here last week.
Yorkshire didn’t need Kuldeep this time. Three balls later, Cliff had another - Somerset captain Lewis Gregory adjudged leg-before. Hill then struck with his fourth ball of the day when he found Migael Pretorius’s outside edge, and the game ended when Matty Revis struck with his second delivery - last man Jake Ball comprehensively yorked.
Jack Leach was left stranded at the other end, a man with previous at this venue when it comes to last-wicket stands. Not this time.
Yorkshire were deserving and comprehensive winners, acclaimed by a Headingley faithful who will hope that, 12 months from now, they can serenade them again - only this time for even happier reasons.