Lancs held to draw on final day at Taunton
Kasey Aldridge hit his maiden first class half-century to bat Somerset out of trouble as the LV= Insurance County Championship match with Lancashire at Taunton ended in a draw.
The home side looked in danger of defeat when slumping from an overnight 41 without loss in their second innings to 169 for six, a lead of only 56, Tom Bailey claiming three of the wickets.
But 22-year-old all-rounder Aldridge, making his first appearance of the season, displayed a calm temperament to score 58 not out in an unbroken seventh-wicket stand of 87 with Lewis Gregory, who contributed 34.
Lancashire were left to count the cost of some dropped catches and had to be content with 12 points after having the better of a contest played on a true batting pitch at the Cooper Associates County Ground. Somerset took 10 points.
The players shook hands at shortly before 5pm at the end of a final day played with the floodlights on from the second over, despite long spells of sunshine.
Somerset began the day needing 72 more runs to make Lancashire bat again and soon their suspect top order was proving fragile again.
Tom Lammonby, Sean Dickson and Cameron Bancroft fell for the addition of only 12 runs, Lammonby, on 23, starting the slide by edging Bailey to second slip where Colin de Grandhomme took a sharp catch moving to his right.
Dickson’s miserable start to the season following his move from Durham continued when he fell lbw to James Anderson moving across his stumps, having added only four to his overnight score of 15.
Bancroft has also struggled to make an impact at his new county and soon followed, caught behind pushing forward to Bailey for four to make it 53 for three.
Tom Abell and Tom Kohler-Cadmore took the score to 90. But when Kohler-Cadmore departed for 16 to another de Grandhomme catch at second slip off George Balderson it meant another failure by one of Somerset’s three new batting recruits.
Between them, Dickson, Bancroft and Kohler-Cadmore have contributed just 256 runs this season in a combined total of 18 innings, without a single half-century between them.
First innings centurions Abell and James Rew again proved more resolute.
Rew survived a straightforward slip chance to de Grandhomme in the slips on nine off Saqib Mahmood before a shower brought an early lunch at 12.50pm with Somerset 121 for four, a lead of eight runs.
The start of the afternoon session brought an even more fortunate escape for Rew, on 28, when Anderson spilled a top-edged sweep at backward square leg off Tom Hartley.
Rew then went on the attack, hitting a six and two fours off a Hartley over to help take the total to 157 for four. At that point, Abell was bowled by a full delivery from Bailey, having looked in little trouble facing 92 balls.
Rew’s luck ran out when he attempted to drive left-arm spinner Hartley through the covers and edged to Luke Wells at slip. But it had been another important contribution from the 19-year-old wicketkeeper following his career best 117 in the first innings.
Aldridge made his way to the crease with plenty of time left for Lancashire to force a victory. Mahmood was soon testing him with a series of short-pitched balls, but the tall youngster was up to the task on the placid wicket.
He and Gregory took the total to 197 for six at tea, a lead of 84, with the second new ball just eight overs away.
It was taken at 227 for six, Aldridge having brought up a half-century stand with Gregory by sweeping successive fours off Hartley. With a possible 27 overs left in the day and Somerset 114 in front, Lancashire needed to strike quickly.
But even Anderson’s fund of skills and know-how proved ineffective on the surface as Aldridge stroked him for two back-foot fours through the covers, the first taking him past his previous best first class score of 41, made against Yorkshire at Taunton last season.
Report by ECB Reporters Network.
Images by Luke Adams & Dan Adams.
