Somerset falter badly as Luke Fletcher, Dane Paterson orchestrate innings win for Notts
Nottinghamshire 448 (Patterson-White 101, Clarke 59, Fletcher 51) beat Somerset 107 (Fletcher 4-21) and 181 (Paterson 4-46) by an innings and 160 runsNot enough character, not enough discipline. Tom Abell was distraught over Somerset’s first-innings collapse. If he was that blunt to the media, what did he say in the dressing room? The message was abundantly clear: it was time to regain some respect, to show some discipline, to dig in.The temptation to imagine Somerset’s young thrusters looking in bewilderment at Abell’s instructions was irresistible.”Well, I’ve got this shot where I swivel yards outside off stump and slam it behind square leg for six,” Tom Lammonby might have ventured.”That’s nothing,” Tom Banton might have answered in turn. “I can slog-sweep the quicks over midwicket as well as anyone, if you like.””That’s just too high risk,” says Abell. “I want percentage shots.””Maybe I could swivel, but not so far?” offers Lammonby.”I never really understood percentages,” mutters Banton.More seasoned professionals, who have seen it all before, nod in acquiescence at such moments and privately tell themselves they will bat with serious intent. But while the older players will merely recalibrate slightly for the matches to follow, or just accept it as one of those things, Somerset’s younger pros have a greater challenge to find a workable Championship tempo.Banton and Lammonby have two half-centuries in 28 Championship starts. Banton averages around 21, Lammonby around 15. Banton’s Championship approach looks a bit shot; in fact, even in the shorter formats, the daring with which he burst on to the scene is now tinged with doubt. Lammonby just looks strokeless. Lewis Goldsworthy, too – a third talented young buck, although as yet not so highly feted – has a similar return.Banton and Lammonby are quite rightly regarded as two of the most thrilling white-ball batters to come out of Somerset for many a year. But you could feel their growing pains. Take chances, push the boundaries and make mistakes is the creed that has carried them so far, but bowlers are learning more about their games and, anyway, in the Championship there are deeper truths and they have yet to find them. Certainly, both need more get-out shots, workaday solutions that keep risk to a minimum. But when four-day cricket is not their first love – and no matter how much they keep up appearances it probably isn’t – finding solutions is psychologically even harder. They literally have run before they can walk.It was shortly after 5 o’clock when Somerset were beaten by an innings and 160 runs, dismissed second time around for 181 to follow up their 107 in the first innings. Everybody tried to dig in, nobody succeeded. They lasted 28 overs longer, but the irony was inescapable that their two highest-scoring batters, Jack Leach and Marchant de Lange, got there by accepting the inevitability of defeat and having a bit of a swing after tea.”We could have done that,” one could fancy that Banton and Lammonby mused in unison.For Nottinghamshire, the first phase in this four-game Division One climax could not have been more fruitful. Their first win at Taunton since 1985 was also their biggest victory margin in history against Somerset. Luke Fletcher and Dane Paterson bowled splendidly throughout, both taking seven wickets in the match as they outdid their Somerset counterparts. They began the season without a Championship win for nearly three years and are now very much in the title shake-up.For Somerset, the manner of defeat questioned their Championship credentials in the absence of two key seam-bowling allrounders, Craig Overton and Lewis Gregory. Leach needs a pitch offering some turn, but he is unlikely to get that against Yorkshire at Scarborough next week and when Lancashire come to Taunton the week after they will carry the legspin threat of Matt Parkinson in return.Somerset’s first three wickets fell to excellent deliveries – Steve Davies, edging one from Fletcher that seamed away; Abell, after 11 in 56 balls, edging one from Paterson that this time did not swing in but held its line; James Hildreth leaving Fletcher’s inswinger, his off stump rattled.For a long period on either side of lunch, Paterson to Lammonby was on repeat. Paterson, sensing that Lammonby had eschewed all temptation, repeatedly offered up deliveries wide outside off stump and Lammonby, a tall man crouching forward, let them pass. When Paterson took a breather, he had figures of 9-6-4-1 and Lammonby had failed to score off 23 balls from him, or the same ball, 23 times.Lammonby found some release when Notts skipper, Steven Mullaney, filled in with a few overs of medium pace – he swung it, too – and he also hooked Brett Hutton down to long leg. But on 34, from 95 balls, he pushed at a good ball from Hutton and was caught at first slip.Banton’s demise came when Paterson squared him up to be lbw. It put him out of his misery and that misery must not be allowed to fester. By the end of the over, only a single from Leach had prevented Paterson taking a triple-wicket maiden. Roelof van der Merwe clipped his first ball to square leg and Goldsworthy, another figure of undying responsibility, lost his off stump.Somerset were 86 for 7 after 48.5 overs, a penitent innings that had achieved nothing.Andy Hurry, Somerset’s director of cricket, was left to reflect upon it all. “We were in game on the first day, but Liam Patterson-White’s century took it away from us and since then we have been totally outplayed,” he said. “We came into the game with high expectations, but respect to Notts for how they went about things and we can certainly learn a few lessons from that. There were no redeeming features in our performance. We expect better individually and collectively from Somerset players.”