Nottinghamshire tighten grip on Somerset

Nottinghamshire 256 and 187 for 6 (Mullaney 29*, Hutton 20*, Siddle 2-26)) lead Somerset 173 (Davey 60, Hutton 6-45) by 270 runs

There is a marvellous Finnish word, ‘kalsarikännit’, which literally means the sort of morbid stay-at-home feeling when you just want to get drunk in your underwear. They may look askance at the suggestion, but aficionados of county cricket are particularly prone to such a mood as they wait for the mental torture of a cricketless winter to end.

When the Championship does return, it does so slowly, not as much bursting into life as leaking, the first milky shafts of sunlight taking several weeks to take the chill out of the bones. Outside Trent Bridge, the river was high, the ground squelchy underfoot. Inside, the groundstaff and drainage systems had created miracles (“they’re abandoned at Leicester already,” said a Notts loyalist at 11 o’clock with grim satisfaction).

As for the spectators, most could at least now claim to be sober and clad in several protective layers, the period of kalsarikännit once more behind them. “Bring my coat, love, the cricket’s starting again.”

Three Somerset batting tyros are missing here, not just Tom Banton, who is recovering from a broken finger, but George Bartlett and Lewis Goldsworthy, who is a bit of a scrapper and, as such, gives their recently brittle line-up a different feel. Steve Davies has also relinquished the gloves to James Rew. Tom Kohler-Cadmore, acquired from Yorkshire, but not steeped in Yorkshire obduracy, is not about to change that nature. He is very much in the adventurous “that’s how I play,” mode, eyes on the shorter formats, and he failed with several forays down the pitch before Hutton had him lbw to straight one.

At times, Hutton found prodigious movement, and his dismissal of Lewis Gregory was pure chicanery. There were better balls for Gregory to envisage a lofted blow over long on. What had all the makings of an outswinger suddenly made a hairpin turn and dipped through the gate. It became three wickets in seven balls as another lavish inswinger did for Craig Overton (a touch leg-sideish perhaps) and squeezed one past Rew’s defence to hit off stump.

With eight down for 87, the follow-on was still possible, but Somerset righted the ship somewhat, Davey’s resistance ensuring that an extra half-hour was taken before lunch to no avail. Tom Moores also relinquished the gloves – Joe Clarke deputising – after suffering a hand injury collecting a rising delivery from Lyndon James.

With a lead of 83, and cloud forecast for Sunday, Nottinghamshire had a sizeable advantage. Peter Siddle took just one ball to silence Ben Duckett at midwicket. Haseeb Hameed’s responsible 34 ended unfortunately at second slip when Gregory forced a deflection of inside edge and pad and the umpires conferred before rightly awarding Kohler-Cadmore a catch. Bancroft’s excellent slip catch removed Ben Slater.

When Liam Patterson-White walked out ahead of the injured Moores at No.7, the lead was 209. Somerset had done well to just about stay in the game, although their cause was not helped when Davey limped off with a hamstring injury. There was turn, too, for Jack Leach which will make their fourth innings even harder. Gregory took his ninth wicket of the match when Liam Patterson-White’s thick edge was taken at gully but Hutton and skipper Steven Mullaney batted sensibly through to the close.

In an age of instant gratification, Championship over rates get more ponderous. To avoid penalties, official figures are massaged for all sorts of spurious reasons. Somerset are spritelier than many, but by the time, the Grand National began at 5.30pm – 15 minutes late because of a course invasion – there were still 30 overs left. If protesters ever glue themselves to the pitch at a county match, nobody will get away before midnight.