There’s something particularly satisfying about watching cricket sat on a park bench that is positioned on the long leg boundary – even if the white picket fence you’re sat behind is plastic rather than wooden.
From there you’ve a fine view of the scoreboard as it somewhat lackadaisically attempts to keep up with the score. But this is cricket, and the relaxed atmosphere engendered by the clear blue skies and warm sunshine means that it doesn’t much matter exactly what the score is, it’s enough to simply enjoy the runs being scored. And besides there’s a chap a few seats away keeping a tally of each dot ball and every firmly struck boundary and, if asked, he’ll happily tell you how many the pair in the middle have put on since the fall of the last wicket.
Eventually though the scoreboard catches up and receives sympathetic applause from the healthy crowd who have helped make Somerset the third best supported county in the country this season.
As play began this morning the bells of St James Church were ringing out, perhaps in celebration that Jack Leach was back in the Somerset team. But with Somerset batting first the Somerset faithful would have to wait a while before they could welcome him to the field of play.
Not everything in life is straightforward. Imagine, for example, having to decide between having your root canal filled or spending an hour listening to someone who thinks there’s too much county cricket. OK, bad example, even when undertaken by the most sadistic of dental practitioners, the former is considerably less painful.
Even so, if Daniel Bell-Drummond had asked me at 10.30 whether, having the won the toss, he should have been batted or bowled first, I would not have been able to advise him. But if the jury was still out at lunch when Somerset were 133-3, there’s little doubt that by tea, with the score now 265-4, that some would have considered the Kent skipper guilty of a tactical error.
Credit to the Kent team though, for bowling in such a way that the days allocated overs always looked likely to be completed more or less within the scheduled hours of play – which is something of a novelty these days. But if the over rate was healthy, so too was the run rate, with runs being consistently being scored at more than four an over.
Matt Renashaw, Tom Lammonby and Andy Umeed all made healthy contributions, but the highlight of the day has to be the fifth wicket partnership between the two wicket-keeper batsmen, Tom Banton and James Rew. Both hit sixes into the aforementioned area which continued to afford me a fine view of proceedings, Banton’s being struck, perhaps, in response to the one by Rew that had helped the youngster briefly pass his traditionally faster scoring partner – despite him having had a 36 run head start.
Banton, though, reached his hundred first, hitting his 150th ball back over the bowler’s head for four. 18 balls later he raced on such that he had made his highest score in first class cricket, passing his previous best of 126. The two hundred partnership soon followed, coming off just over 42 overs and then, with the very next delivery, Rew reached his hundred, made form just 128 deliveries.
All good things though come to an end. Banton was eventually out for 133 and Rew fell for 114 with just six and a half overs left in the day. Both were fine, fine innings, the like of which we’re all well away they’re capable of and which will hopefully serve to build their confidence.
Craig Overton was out in the penultimate over after scoring a brisk 23, after which Louis Gregory and Migael Pretorius saw out the eight remaining deliveries. At close of play, with still no sign of Jack Leach, and maximum batting points just 10 runs away, the score was a very healthy 440-7
And if a highly enjoyable day of cricket wasn’t enough in itself, there were, as is so often the case at county championship matches, opportunities to meet new people and talk cricket, including today, the elderly gentleman who pondered why left handers always seemed to have more time to play their shots than right handers, the venerable editor of a cricket magazine, who tirelessly campaigns for the survival of the county game, and a certain club cat who, not surprisingly, felt the day had been nothing short of purr-fect!
Other cricket related blogs:
To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here
To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here
To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here
To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, – blog contrasting two centuries, one in ‘The Hundred’, the other in a one Day cup game, click here
To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, of how the One Day Cup has been devalued by a certain short format competition, click here
To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here
To read ‘Only a game’, click here
To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here
To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here
To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here
To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here
To read ‘Breaking News’, click here
To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here
To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here
To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here
To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here
To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here
To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here
To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here
To read ‘My love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here
To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here
To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium’, click here
To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here
To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here
To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here
To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here
To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here
To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here
To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here
To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here
To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here
To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol’, click here
To read ‘Twenty things we have learnt this summer’, click here
To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here
To read ‘If Only’, click here
To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here
To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here
To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here
To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here
A Jack Leach Trilogy:
To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here
To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here
To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here
To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here
And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour
To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here
To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here
Some musings 
sounds like an excellent day to be in Taunton. A couple of my pals went, I and was very nearly on the train from Temple Meads with them but life got in the way.
A good day for both our teams. According to my maths we are (collectively) 825 – 9. Can’t have been many days like that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes – a great day for Gloucestershire too – 300+ for the opening wicket somewhat better than Somerset’s 0!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Quite the contrast!
LikeLike