)}})
Jason looks back at remarkable victory
Somerset secured a sensational last-gasp victory over Surrey in the Vitality Blast County Championship yesterday to blow the First Division title race wide open.
Now that the dust has settled on a remarkable four days, we sat down with Somerset Head Coach, Jason Kerr to get his reaction to everything that occurred.
“It was incredible but not surprising with this group of players,” he said as we looked out over the field of play that had acted as yesterday’s stage. “The character and resilience that they’ve demonstrated time and time again is going from strength to strength. The belief is growing all the time, and as I’ve said many times, this is a journey and we’re getting better year by year and game by game. It doesn’t get much better than the euphoria of a win with two minutes to go on the final day of a four-day game.
“The emotion yesterday made it feel like a final. It was an incredible final hour, an incredible four days and a game that will live long in the memory. On day one we were massively in the ascendancy but had a crazy hour which let Surrey back into the game. There was parity after both first innings but we were poor again for a period of time. That’s the beauty of four-day cricket. We had valuable partnerships down the order with Jack Leach and Craig Overton and Tom Banton was unbelievable. We then showed that we have the ability to apply pressure on the last day. That’s what the purest form of the game is all about. You have to manage pressure, emotions and skill, and we did that brilliantly yesterday.”
At the start of the day, did Jason feel that a Somerset win was a possibility?
“100%. Chasing a small total can be a challenge, so I always felt that we’d have an opportunity to win the game, especially when you’ve got Jack Leach in your side.”
Tom Banton’s heroics, batting on one leg after sustaining an ankle injury in the warm up, made the headlines. What did Jason make of his performance?
“I’m pleased for him as an individual because he’s demonstrated enormous growth this year.,” he said. “We’ve seen what he’s done out on the park, but what people don’t see is how he’s grown as a character. There’s a significant work ethic, there’s a desire to do well in red-ball cricket as well as white-ball cricket, and we’ve seen that. He’s worked incredibly hard and he showed amazing hunger. He was desperate to get back out there, against the advice of the medical team, because he felt that even a one-run partnership could be the difference. As it turned out he played incredibly well.”
Jack Leach and Archie Vaughan shared 20 wickets over the course of the game, much to Jason’s delight.
“With those two, you have both ends of the spectrum. At one end you have Archie who’s coming into the game and everything is new and exciting to him. Arguably, he’s got nothing to lose at this stage and he’s demonstrated how talented he is, which is really exciting for the future. Then you’ve got Leachy. People are expecting him to bowl teams out and he delivered because he’s world class. He’s come back from adversity time and time again to demonstrate how good he is as a cricketer.
“It was a massive team effort. One of the things we talked about in the morning was that it wasn’t just down to those two. It was about the collective. The spell that Craig Overton bowled created pressure and things were happening. It’s about 11 people pushing, striving and achieving together. Individuals often get the plaudits in this game, but you’ll never see more of a team effort than we saw here over the four days against Surrey.”
What was the atmosphere like in the dressing room?
“It was incredible. That sense of unity and achievement is why you play sport. There are highs and lows in sport and that was one of the incredible highs. It doesn’t happen every day and that’s why you need to enjoy it when it does.”
Can Somerset go on to win the title?
“It’s exciting, isn’t it. We’ve got an opportunity now and that’s all we can ask for. At the start of the summer I sat with Lewis and the group and we discussed the fact that we wanted to put ourselves in a position where there was an opportunity for us to do something special. We’ve got that now. We have to concentrate on what we can control. If Surrey get maximum points from their last two games then there’s nothing we can do, but if we get maximum points and they don’t then it’s going to be exciting. That’s the beauty of the County Championship. Whatever happens, there’s a brilliant two weeks ahead of us.”
