Leeds with the Wright?

Will he be there?
By Grockle
April 14 2010

Well Mr Wright is in the county but will he be wearing whites for us tomorrow in Yorkshire? Possible hamstring injury may make him doubtful. Will that open the door for the much vaunted Munday or the pace of David Stiff? We're off and running as of 11am people. The 2010 Championship campaign gets underway and Trescothick's team have to be ready for it.

v Yorkshire CC1 @ Headingley Carneigie Thursday April 15 2010

Scorecard

Coverage

Nathan's online blog

The era of Emporer Trescothick begins in earnest with the first Championship outing of the new Somerset. His international spinner Murali Karthik is not yet available but his possible England wicketkeeper batsman Craig Kieswetter is. We will have to wait in Grocklesland for the presence of "Grocklee 2010" Jos Buttler in the side a little while longer.

According to the official site the top seven pick themselves. Great news no doubt for newbie Nick Compton who will follow his skipper and Arul Suppiah to the crease at number 3. James Hildreth, Craig Kieswetter and Peter Trego will be there and we welcome back the newly "Anglicised" Zander de Bruyn to the only county he could truly be in with a first name beginning with "Z"! He and Hilda will be tussling for who comes in at number 4 - you have to assume it depends on the fall of wickets before them as to who wins.

Our other two new Englishman, Vice captain Alf Thomas (It has to be shortened from Alfonso surely!) and Charl Willoughby seem to be certain to be the first two pacemen on the sheet but will they be joined by our temporary replacement for the absent "Murali". Damien Wright wants to be out there tomorrow - Headingley is the place he returned his best figures - but there is a bit of a hamstring scare that may put paid to his chances of starting for us...not a great situation for a player only with us for about four weeks! we could do with his tried and tested pace experience. Hopefully he will be name number 10 on the sheet.

There are three names for the number eleven place. Ben Phillips would like to get his season off to an early start and looked incisive in the friendly I watched against Glamorgan. David Stiff could hold the key to our season with his pace but is he yet under enough control to be an effective weapon? The students of Cardiff were blown away by him but his Glamorgan performance was a little less solid in places - Taunton is excited but will they take the gamble in such an important match as this first one. Morale and points are both crucial at the moment. The third name has been the subject of much debate on the blogs and sites about the place.

Where does the legspinner Michael Munday figure in this 2010 campaign? Will Karthik take his place as the matchwinning spinner or work with him to enhance his value to the squad? Has he moved on enough to be played regularly or will he only be in a side on a spinning wicket. Has he simply been named in this side without a chance of playing? Yorkshire have named a spinner in their side so the conditions may be right and it will be a big match for him if he gets the nod.

Munday probably has a better chance of playing if Wright is iincluded but may still miss out to Stiff if the Yorkshire strip suggests that pace will win the game. We'll have to wait and see.

Yorkshire come off the back of a good 4 wicket away win at Edgbaston and we are bottom of the table having not played in the first round. Banger's Beauties have to hit the ground running and firing. there are no easy games in this division and we have to take every opportunity to gain points. Durham are once again the team to beat and although we have a chance, it has to be a chance we take hold of and hold on to very hard.

There is radio coverage from Radio Leeds. Nathan Jones from our local press will be running a live blog during the game, highlights will be on ECB TV each evening as part of a Championship show. It's all getting very multi-media. Anyone there can post info on the forum and I'll update this front page with anything relevant.

Day 1

We win the toss and choose (surprisingly) to bat. Wright is in with Stiff even though Yorkshire are going in with two spinners and talking a lot about changes to the Headingley wicket to ensure it starts to break up on the third into the fourth day. It looks even dafter when Arul (5) and Compton (6) are returned to the pavilion with not a lot on the board (35). But the captain shows how it should be done and with a little bit of resistance from Hildreth he starts to set out his stall. It's not the greatest of performances from our line-up in the face of good bowling especialy from Bresnan but the skipper stands his ground, moves past 50 in 49 balls and then over 100 in a much more sedate 160 - partly making sure his anchor is secure as few others reach double figures. Finally he is removed by Rashid (LBW) for 117 at 206 for 6 (Hildreth 30, de Bruyn 4, Kieswetter 7).

After the captain's departure Trego and Wright look to get us back on track and it looks like they will make a real go of it but at 244 our allrounder chops on and goes for 45. The new boy follows him soon after making a real hash of a huge Rashid full toss. Rather than smacking it over a boundary he smacks it to Shahzad and walks off for 21 at 252. The backend adds another 20 with Stiff unbeaten on 12 and we are done for 272 at about 5pm with "iffy" light suggesting that although we will get a bowl at Yorkshire it may not be for long.

Charl opens and has Lyth LBW second ball - get into 'em early! Wright starts with a no ball and a wide but is then into his stride and the two Yorkshire batsmen are not comfortable against them. CW has a good shout against McGrath but it is not given and then, with Sayers not off the mark, Trigger puts the man down off Wright at third slip! As is usual, Sayers then hits four to get off the mark and within minutes the umpires have decided that the light is not good enough for this pace and they leave the field at 5:35. Yorkshire 16 for 1 and we have probably just shaded the first day's play.

Day 2 - 3

Having the best of the first day did not auger as well as would have been expected. Yorkshire did not collapse and we did not come out mangling wickets on the second morning. The wicket seemed to flatten and each batsman became a thorn in our side as they did what we had failed to do and went into double figures!! Gale hit a ton and the tail wagged vigorously with an eigth wicket partnership of 109 the most significant.

The choice of David Stiff over Michael Munday did not work and he seemed to be labouring during the day. Despite sterling work from Willoughby, Wright and Thomas, it was left to Peter Trego to finally clear out the last four wickets (after being all but ignored for a large part of the innings). Yorkshire finished their first punt in the first half of Day 3 on 419 all out with a significant lead, a flatish pitch and most of the front line spinners. The balance of the game had moved.

A big job for the much vaunted Somerset batsmen who had failed their captain in the first trip to the wicket. A solid performance would ensure the draw and give us the decision on when to counter attack on Day 4. But 3 down (including the captain - well he can't do it all) with only 88 on the board did not make us believe that we had a big chance to put this one away. Suppiah stood tall and held the team together and after his 77, de Bruyn also stood tall while the cream of SCCC fell short around him. Compton failed again, little from Hildreth, Kieswetter or Trego and although we had wickets in hand at the end of Day 3 we didn't have many and we were a mere 54 ahead!!

Day 4

83 from Zander and 40 from Stiff plus 44 from Thomas helped us make a game of it and although we did add 344 to our first tota, we did not hold them up enough or give them enough to chase for it not to fall apart in the last hour of the match and a loss by 6 wickets is NOT the start we wanted.

Ronniesabre was actually there and had these comments about the game overall...

"Just back from Headingley after watching the 4 days. Think to sum up I would say very disappointing.

I am particularly worried about our much vaunted batting unit. Two pivotal positions in this are at 3 and 4 and Im afraid in this game we were found wanting. Compton looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and Hildreths body language is not encouraging. These boys will need to up it or we will be in deep doo doo.

CK also to me didn't seem interested. I thought his keeping (especially in the 1st innings) was dire and his batting was all too frenetic. Hopefully after the t20 nonsense in the WI he will sort this but I cant help thinking Buttler would have done just as much in this game.

The bowling didn't look penetrative enough and why was Trego only given a decent bowl on the 3rd morning? Stiff was a nightmare, wides and no balls (22 of them) compared with 2 by the whole of the Yorkshire team.... Personally I would give Turner a run.

We got it wrong at the toss, Yorks had a perfectly balanced team in respect of specialisms and all round look better and stronger than us..."

"...If you think about it though Yorks probably cant play much better, and we certainly can and we took them all the way.....there has to be encouragement in that.

Also thought the umpires were dodgy............every time the ball hit the pads they gave it out. I think at least 30% of the decision were incorrect...........including Trescothick twice..."

So some positives to take away from a start we didn't want. Notts on Wednesday and a big game very early in the season. We cannot lost the big scores this early in a capaign and losing to Notts is NOT an option to even contemplate.