SOMERSET BLOW IT AS LANCS GRAB TIE:
THEY’VE seen a thing or two at the County Ground in Taunton — home of Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Joel Garner — but never anything like this. Chasing a mere 78 to beat Lancashire and retain their slim hopes of a first County Championship title, Somerset slumped to 23 for five and then 64 for eight in the face of a devilish spell from South Africa left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj on a raging turner of a pitch that may cost the hosts points. Dom Bess and Jamie Overton scrambled 13 runs to bring the scores level but just as the Somerset faithful were preparing to celebrate, Maharaj had Bess stumped trying to hit the ball out of the ground. And after Overton played out a maiden, last man Jack Leach picked out Tom Bailey on the deep midwicket boundary to complete the first tie in the Championship since 2003. Lancashire director of cricket Paul Allott said: ‘We would have taken a tie at 10.30 this morning I can tell you. It was a hugely dramatic game, although I am not sure how good it was. What it has done is caught people’s attention and put County Championship cricket in the spotlight. ‘The pitch, in my view, was certainly below average and could have been rated poor on the ECB scale. It was a loose and dusty surface. If you can’t turn a ball on that wicket there isn’t much hope for you.’ Somerset are on probation after producing a sub-standard pitch last year and could be docked points if they are ruled to have prepared another poor track. But director of cricket Andy Hurry said: ‘With a couple of exceptions, neither team applied themselves with the bat and we certainly didn’t in our final innings chasing down only 78. I am just as disappointed as the players are in our dressing room.’