Career-best for Craig as Somerset tighten their grip on day two
Craig Overton put Somerset in a dominant position against Essex at Chelmsford with the highest score of an illustrious First Class career.
The stand-in captain walked out on Friday evening with Somerset creaking at 114 for five, still 35 runs behind Essex’s first innings, but had more than doubled the score in three-and-a-half hours at the crease by the time he was out for 141 in mid-afternoon. In partnerships of 98 with Lewis Goldsworthy and 118 with Will Smeed, Overton helped Somerset establish a 199-run lead.
It was a decade ago that the then 22-year-old Overton scored his only previous century, 138 against Hampshire, though he has been in formidable form with the bat in recent times: he has passed fifty in four of his last six Rothesay County Championship innings, stretching back to September, and 219 runs in three innings this season. His 180-ball ton included 19 fours and three sixes.
In response, Essex lost three wickets in the first 15 overs of their second innings before Paul Walter and Matt Critchley settled into a defiant fourth-wicket stand currently worth 86 runs either side of a 53-minute rain delay. Walter reached his first fifty of the season and Critchley hit nine fours in his half-century. Essex closed on 131 for three.
That Overton as captain had the Midas touch was evidenced when he won the toss on a bowler-friendly green-top. It continued when Essex batted again when he called up Jack Leach for a short, pre-tea spell and saw the spinner remove Dean Elgar with his sixth delivery, held low down at mid-on by Tom Abell.
Then, straight after the interval, a switch of ends for Migael Pretorius led to Luc Benkenstein driving loosely at a wide ball that ended up in James Rew’s gloves. Charlie Allison departed without scoring when he dabbed Jake Ball into the slips.
However, it was a day all about Overton as batter. It had initially been a more circumspect Devonian than on the previous evening when his first fifty had taken just 33 balls. On a now lifeless pitch, and under gloomy skies, he was content on a no-risk policy while building a solid advantage.
With Goldsworthy, Overton took that advantage to 63 before the stand was broken nearly an hour and 15 overs into the morning. Goldsworthy, who batted with Tom Lammonby as a runner after tweaking a hamstring before play, was caught behind off Jamie Porter.
That brought in Smeed, the injury substitute for Tom Kohler-Cadmore, for his First Class debut. Smeed took time to acclimatise, using up 18 balls before getting off the mark.
A single turned into the legside by Overton brought up his three-figures from 136 balls and a celebratory fist pump as he reached the non-striker’s end.
The arrival of the second new-ball signalled an upturn in the rate of scoring with 50 runs added in seven overs, with nine boundaries, before Overton’s epic effort was ended when he was lbw to Shane Snater. Without a run added Smeed (who had reached 39) was strangled down the legside by Cook to claim his third wicket.
Porter and Snater followed suit with their third wickets to wrap up the Somerset innings in the space of five balls: Pretorius thick-edged to first slip and Ball fall to a catch at third slip.
At the close of play, Craig Overton said: “I feel maybe I am in the form of my life. I’ve spent a fair amount of time on it over the last two years and it seems like it has clicked. It’s progressed a bit more this winter and seems to be paying off. There’s a long way to go this summer but I want to keep contributing runs.
“It’s a good wicket now. We knew coming into this third innings that they are a good team, they’re not just going to fold away, we need to be right on it. We started off pretty well, but that last half-an-hour we let it slip a little bit, But I think we are still in a great position. They’re 70 behind with seven wickets left, if we can get these two out early we’re right back in the game. But we know we need to turn up tomorrow and put a performance in.
“It was good fun batting with Will. Obviously, I haven’t done it before, but it was nice for him to get out there and contribute with the bat. He looked a little bit nervous to begin with as you’d expect, but I said just commit to what you’ve been doing in the last six weeks. He got into his groove and batted really nicely in the end.”
