http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Somerset-c843 grind out draw
An authoritative unbeaten half-century from Nick Compton helped Somerset to earn a hard-fought draw against Middlesex in the County Championship Division One game, played at Lord’s London, on June 8, 2012.
Among all the matches across the division, the game at Lord’s by far had provided the most game-time, but ultimately rain proved decisive – ruling out the possibility of a favourable result for the hosts.
That had seemed likely for a while following Somerset’s poor first innings’ showings, where they registered just 173, and Middlesex’s exceptional batting where http://www.senore.com/Cricket/JL-Denly-c1703 had put their side in a commanding position with respective centuries
– ending their first outing at 364 for 3.
The tourists were in all sorts of trouble when play resumed on the final morning. Openers http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Arul-Suppiah-c1084 and Alex Barrow had departed for 4 and 0 respectively, leaving their side at 2 for 4.
However, Compton led the charge superbly with a composed 69 and managed to find support from his teammates. The player, who last week missed out on completing 1000 first-class runs before May, first added a crucial 77-run stand with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/James-Hildreth-c1647 (38),
which allowed the team to rebuild following a shaky start.
Hildredth’s departure off Toby Roland http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Peter-Trego-c2181, who registered a brisk half-century.
Trego notched up 50 off just 54 balls, hitting nine fours and a six while scoring the major chunk in the 63-run. That revived Somerset’s chances of a draw and despite http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Tim-Murtagh-c2673 cleaning up Trego and Craig Overton in a single over, Compton held the innings
strong.
His 8th wicket stand with skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Alfonso-Thomas-c991 ( 39*) all but confirmed the state of the match – Somerset posting 227 for 7 as rain intervened for good.
"It was not ideal, the weather has for once this season come on our side," Somerset skipper, Alfonso Thomas said. "But we've definitely been outplayed the last three days, Middlesex have bowled and batted definitely better than us and we have to go back
to the drawing board - try to fix things for the Twenty20 campaign coming up."
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