Gregory’s show of class keeps Somerset title dream alive

Somerset maintained their bid to topple leaders Surrey and win a maiden Specsavers County Championship title by beating Yorkshire at Emerald Headingley by 224 runs.

Tom Abell’s second-placed side wrapped up their third straight win shortly after tea, with 26.3 overs remaining, to leave the gap to leaders Surrey at 32 points with four games to play, including a match between the two at Taunton in the penultimate week of the season.

Yorkshire started day four on eight for two chasing an improbable target of 419 and were bowled out for 194.

Lewis Gregory broke the thirdwicket stand of 90 between nightwatchman Josh Shaw and New Zealand captain Kane Williamson just before lunch. The all-rounder, an increasingly talismanic figure, added his third wicket when Shaw shuffled across and was trapped lbw for a career-best 42 as the score slipped to 94 for three. Gregory finished the game with two fifties and six wickets, including four in the second innings.

Shaw was one of three wickets to fall in seven overs either side of lunch. Williamson reached his fifty off 105 balls before falling two balls later, caught behind off Craig Overton. Overton then trapped Tom KohlerCadmore lbw for a duck, before the superb Jamie Overton flicked Gary Ballance’s off stump.

Captain David Willey and Matthew Fisher then held things up with a 45-run stand inside 19 overs either side of tea. But the latter fell to Jamie Overton, caught at third slip by Gregory, as the score fell to 188 for nine. Overton wrapped up the game by getting Jack Brooks caught at second slip to finish with an excellent four for 25.

Elsewhere, Peter Siddle took five for 48 as Essex claimed their fourth championship win of the season, beating visitors Hampshire by an innings and 52 runs.

It was Siddle’s third five-wicket haul in six championship appearances for Essex and took his tally to 34 for the season with just one game to play – against Surrey next week – before returning to Australia.

He was ably supported by Simon Harmer, who alternated between his traditional haunt at the Hayes Close End and the River End, and finished with four wickets for 64 – taking him to 43 victims this summer.

Hampshire, losing for the fourth time this season, move deeper into troubled waters in the lower reaches of Division One, with just one point keeping them out of the bottom two.

In Division Two, Joe Denly recorded his best first-class figures as

Kent moved into the promotion places with a six-wicket win over hosts Derbyshire.

Denly was off the field for most of the final morning through illness but took the last four wickets to finish with four for 36 as Derbyshire were bowled out for 270 – Harvey Hosein top-scoring with an unbeaten 66.

That left Kent with a target of 110 and although they lost wickets with the finish in sight, a 23-point victory took them above Sussex into second place in the table.

At Bristol, Ryan Higgins finished with career-best match figures of eight for 54 as Gloucestershire wrapped up a 328-run victory over Leicestershire.