Somerset wrap up stunning victory on day four
Neeeding seven more Nottinghamshire wickets at the start of the day, Somerset got home with consummate ease at Trent Bridge to claim a third win of this year’s Rothesay County Championship campaign.
Nottinghamshire, in theory requiring 426 when resuming on 47 for three, were bowled out for 166 giving Somerset victory by a mammoth 306 runs. This was the reigning champions first defeat at home in 14 games, and only their second in their last 23 overall.
Jake Ball, a substitute at tea on Sunday for injured Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory, took two for 33 against his old county but it was Craig Overton (five for 29) who swept aside three of the six specialist batters. Fergus O’Neill, with a doughty unbeaten 54 was the one man to pass 25.
At least the Australian, supported by Dillon Pennington, took the game beyond a delayed lunch as the pair summoned belated resolve through 18 overs to add 48 for the ninth wicket, but Somerset finished clear title contenders in a race now even tighter.
Almost before the home side had time to blink they found three batters back in the dressing room within the first ten overs. Joe Clarke, who had become this year’s highest run-scorer in the course of the game, in fact concluded a difficult outing when losing his off stump to Ball’s inswinger for four.
Clarke, who arrived just before Sunday’s close but hadn’t faced, took a boundary from Ball’s opening delivery of the morning only to be undone by his eighth. His overnight partner, home captain Haseeb Hameed, enduring a poor season with the bat after his outstanding 2025, just hinted that fortunes might have changed.
But having added 13 to reach 25, his thin edge at a wide legside Overton ball was caught behind, typifying Hameed’s summer so far. He now averages 23.75.
Worse followed for Lyndon James who completed a pair in a match to forget when, driving in Overton’s next over, he edged to Thomas Rew, whose own match he’ll remember forever. After his magnificent maiden century on Sunday, Rew, keeping wicket, dived at full stretch to hold the chance superbly.
Now 75 for six, Nottinghamshire showed every chance of not reaching the interval but Jack Haynes was joined by Liam Patterson-White in a partnership which was to prove the longest of the day’s first half dozen, albeit just 38 balls.
With Overton rested after his six morning overs brought two for 17, Migael Pretorius came on at the Radcliffe Road End to remove the new batter with his ninth ball. Driving, Patterson-White was held low by Overton, now at second slip.
South African Pretorius gained his second success six overs later when Haynes’s defensive edge gave Rew his fourth catch of the innings. There had just been ironic cheers from the few faithful spectators still in the stands when the innings passed three figures but Haynes, out for 24, left the tally at 104 for eight.
Only then did resistance materialise, O’Neill and Pennington perhaps making a point to the batters. They were finally parted when Pennington, slicing a drive to square cover for 15, gave Overton his fourth wicket.
Even then, refusing singles with last man Mohammad Ali now in, O’Neill would not concede, reaching his sixth career fifty from 94 balls before Ali fell in a tangle with a bouncer, lobbing a catch to the infield as Overton completed his first five-wicket haul since September.
It was by no means Somerset’s greatest championship triumph by runs but it sends them home in fine heart for the meeting with Warwickshire on Friday when Nottinghamshire go to Chelmsford in search of consolation.
After the stunning victory, Overton said: “Any time the ball moves off the straight you know you’re in the game with our attack, so we were confident from the start. We have only 13 fit players at moment but our youngsters have been outstanding and the Somerset Academy just keeps churning them out. They turn up and produce runs when we need them. Thomas Rew is a phenomenal talent. I thought the runs he got in the first innings were actually more significant than his hundred because it kept us in the game when it was difficult.
“It’s obviously a very good result for us as they don’t lose here (Trent Bridge) very often but we’ve got the belief we can beat anyone and I think we showed that today”
