Lancashire victory ends Somerset title bid
Luke Wells took four second-innings wickets to add to his century against Somerset
- Published
Vitality County Championship Division One, Emirates Old Trafford (day four)
Lancashire 140 & 398: Wells 130; Leach 3-57
Somerset 146 & 224: Vaughan 68; Wells 4-36, Phillip 3-81
Lancashire (19 pts) beat Somerset (3 pts) by 168 runs
Surrey’s third successive County Championship title was confirmed as Somerset fell to a 168-run defeat away to Lancashire.
It took just 32 minutes and 7.1 overs on the fourth morning at Emirates Old Trafford for the hosts to complete a third win of the season .
Resuming on 204-6, Somerset were dismissed for 224, with Luke Wells (4-36) taking two of the wickets, and Anderson Phillip the other two to finish with 3-81.
While the result ends Somerset’s hopes of winning a maiden County Championship title, it does little to boost Lancashire’s chances of avoiding relegation after next week’s concluding round of matches.
Keaton Jennings’ side will be playing Division Two cricket next season regardless of the result of their final game against Worcestershire if Nottinghamshire take at least 10 points at home to Warwickshire, who would also need five points from that game.
Somerset lost a wicket to the first ball of the day when Lewis Gregory was deceived by Wells’ googly and bowled for a golden duck.
Lancashire enjoyed more success in the next over when Craig Overton was leg-before wicket to Phillip for four, and Brett Randell was then bowled for nine by Wells.
The game ended - and Surrey’s hat-trick of titles was confirmed - when James Rew was bowled by Phillip for 31.
Somerset’s defeat also saw them slip to third below Hampshire who leapfrogged into second place with victory against Worcestershire.
Report supplied by ECB Reporters' Network.
Lancashire skipper Keaton Jennings told BBC Radio Lancashire:
“I’m really chuffed the lads have put in what is our best team performance over the course of this campaign.
“It’s down to guys putting their hands up. Luke Wells getting 130 and putting in a performance to get us into a winning position and then taking poles this morning.
“Guys chipped in with the new ball. The bowlers had to take 20 wickets to win the game and they’ve done that.
“It’s awesome. We could have disintegrated, but didn’t. We continued to fight like we have over the whole campaign. The guys have tried really hard, they just haven’t quite got it right like we did in this game.”
Somerset head coach Jason Kerr told BBC Radio Somerset:
“If you don’t believe you can win, there’s no point turning up. We thought there was a chance but obviously it hasn’t turned out that way.
“I take a huge amount from this season. Every county wants to be in a position in which you are competing to win trophies and there’s also been young players emerging. There’ll be a huge number of positives but it’s probably slightly early to be in a position where we can reflect on it all.
“We’ve progressed since last year. We finished seventh and this year we’ve been more disjointed with our overseas signings and the continuity of the side’s been different as well but we’ve grown massively.”
