A magnificent century by young Australian batsman Jake Lehmann couldn’t save Yorkshire from a 10-wicket loss to Somerset as the English County season heads for a thrilling finish.
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The odds are still against Somerset as Middlesex will go a further 16 points ahead if they can win their ongoing match with Lancashire.
Ryan Sidebottom was the standout bowler with 5-51, his first five-wicket haul of the season, and he helped reduce the visitors from 123-1 to 164-4 before lunch.
But every time Yorkshire looked like gaining a foothold, Somerset responded well, most notably through the majority of the afternoon when Gregory and Craig Overton shared 101 for the seventh wicket to take the lead beyond 200.
“I was really pleased with my own performance and it was nice to have done so well”. When you are regularly 40 for three it puts you under the cosh and some solutions need to be found.
“Going into this game we were pretty confident, but to score 145 in the first innings on a pretty decent pitch is not ideal”.
“Then, as a bowling unit, we didn’t put enough pressure on their batters”.
“If we can get Trescothick and Rogers out early on you never know, we could fight our way back and we must keep our chins up”.
It is quite fitting that Yorkshire and Somerset should lock horns this week because it will be a year tomorrow (Wednesday) that Brian Close died and he would have been proud that the two county sides he captained should be involved in such a significant battle in mid-September. We’re still second, and anything can happen.
“We’ve always bowled well as a unit, but we didn’t really do that”.
It was nearly exclusively through Sidebottom’s efforts that Somerset were denied a fifth batting bonus point but they still dominated the first two days to an extent that they could never have imagined.
Jim Allenby and Peter Trego made sensible progress in a 64 stand but when Sidebottom re-appeared he extracted extra bounce outside off-stump to have Trego edging to wicketkeeper, Andrew Hodd, for 46.
When the last wicket fell at 286 it left Somerset to make 42 to win which openersTom Abell and former England star Marcus Trescothick managed without fuss.
Unfortunately, after Sidebottom wrapped up the innings after tea with two of the last three wickets, Yorkshire’s day was about to get worse.
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Then it was Gregory who struck first as Alex Lees edged him to first slip and with the ball starting zipping around under high cloud, Yorkshire were reduced to 37 for three, Gary Ballance and Andrew Gale both driving at Tim Groenewald and losing their off-stumps.
