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Somerset on top after day three
Jack Leach completed another five-wicket haul as Somerset ended the third day of this Vitality County Championship Division One match at the Cooper Associates County Ground on top.
The visitors began by adding 64 runs to their overnight first innings score of 272 for six before being bowled out for 336, Brydon Carse contributing a stubborn 104 and Ben Raine making 62. Leach finished with five for 124 off 41.1 overs.
That gave Somerset a first innings lead of 156. They declined to enforce the follow on and posted 263 for five in their second innings, Tom Abell leading the way with top score of 56.
After an hour’s delay for bad light, the home side declared, setting their opponents an unlikely victory target of 420 on pitch offering increasing assistance for the spinners. By stumps, they had stumbled to 15 for three and face a backs-to-the-wall final day.
Durham began the morning session needing 71 runs to avoid the prospect of following on, with Carse, in his first game back after serving a three-month ban for historic breaches of betting rules, unbeaten on 59 and Raine 51 not out.
The pair added 15, extending their seventh-wicket stand to 117, before Raine edged Leach into the bucket hands of Craig Overton, who claimed his fourth catch of the innings at slip.
Seamer Kasey Aldridge then took a hand, sending back George Drissell, who fended a steeply rising ball to short leg, and Daniel Hogg, caught by diving wicketkeeper James Rew, to leave Durham 305 for nine.
Carse had already cleared the ropes off Leach and went to his hundred with two more sixes off successive deliveries from Aldridge, having faced 161 balls and hit 11 fours and four maximums. It was a faultless knock by the England white ball international, but before he could face again, last man Callum Parkinson was caught at silly point off Leach to end the innings.
Somerset’s second innings plan appeared to be to bat aggressively while Lewis Goldsworthy played an anchor role. Fellow opener Andy Umeed made a rapid 28 off 31 balls before lofting a catch to long-off in the penultimate over before lunch, Drissell taking the chance off Parkinson. At the interval, Somerset were 41 for one, with a lead of 197, and poised for an afternoon assault.
Tom Lammonby launched it with 36 off 34 balls, looking in excellent touch until beaten by a perfectly pitched off-break from Drissell, which turned and clipped the left-hander’s off stump. Abell then added 36 with the patient Goldsworthy, whose 99-ball innings ended when he was caught behind, driving at Parkinson, having matched his first innings score of 38.
Tom Banton provided just the acceleration his team needed, smashing two sixes in a Drissell over and also clearing the ropes twice off Parkinson as he raced to 46 off 28 balls before miscuing a catch to mid-off to give Carse a wicket. By then Somerset were 353 ahead at 197 for four.
Abell was unbeaten on 45 at tea, which was taken at 209 for four. He reached a confident 69-ball half-century with an exquisite extra cover drive for four off Bas de Leede, but fell soon afterwards edging the same bowler through to wicketkeeper Ollie Robinson to make it 228 for five.
Rew and Archie Vaughan had added a further 35 to take the lead past 400 when, with the floodlights blazing brightly, the umpires decided the light was too poor to continue. An hour later play resumed at 6.05pm with the declaration made and Durham facing a maximum of 13 overs before the close.
They made a disastrous start against spin from both ends, Alex Lees calling for a quick single to cover off the first ball of the second over, bowled by Vaughan, and Ben McKinney unable to beat Abell’s throw to wicketkeeper Rew.
Overton’s close catching prowess was evident again when Lees edged Leach to leg slip and departed for six. Then Vaughan bowled Scott Borthwick, turning the ball past his outside edge, to leave Durham with two nightwatchmen at the wicket and facing a massive uphill battle.
