There was record-breaking cricket played by Somerset County Cricket Club playing against Warwickshire today. Batting as the tenth of Somerset’s eleven players, Jamie Overton scored 120 runs. It was the highest ever score for a Somerset player batting at number ten in the order. Along with Steve Davies, the Somerset wicket keeper, Overton added one hundred and eighty runs for the ninth wicket. The Somerset score rose from 226 for 8 wickets to 406 for 9 wickets, setting them up for their third successive win.
Somerset dominance of matches against counties as strong as Warwickshire has not been a frequent experience. Somerset have never been county champions and have spent much of their history in the lower reaches of the league table.
Passing our local cricket ground, which lies close to Huish Episcopi church, I remembered that the local club had achieved a record that no county team has ever matched
Details of the record-breaking performance may be found in Gerald Gosling and Frank Huddy’s 1993 book Somerton, Ilchester and Langport. The book includes the scorecard of a match between Langport and Glastonbury on Whit Monday 1913.
It is evident from the scorecard that Glastonbury batted first, but that their strong opening batsman didn’t receive much support.
Glastonbury
| C A H Baily | b Cozens | 34 | ||
| A Lisk | c Knight | b Lang | 6 | |
| G J Ingram | run out | 1 | ||
| B Giblett | hit wkt | b Cozens | 8 | |
| H S Baily | not out | 9 | ||
| H Baily | b Cozens | 0 | ||
| W Davis | b Lang | 10 | ||
| A Lukins | run out | 10 | ||
| G Edwards | lbw | b Cozens | 0 | |
| J Pompey | run out | 4 | ||
| T Wickham | b Cozens | 1 | ||
| Extras | 3 | |||
| Total | 86 |
A five wicket haul for Langport bowler Cozens suggests he was handy enough. Perhaps tea was taken between the innings. No-one would have anticipated a world record equalling performance when Langport came into bat.
Langport
| C J Manley | lbw | b Lisk | 0 | |
| F J Pittard | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| J Lane | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| A Knight | c Lukins | b Lisk | 0 | |
| W E Brister | b Baily | 0 | ||
| H E Cozens | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| H G Stigings | lbw | b Lisk | 0 | |
| H B Hamm | b Baily | 0 | ||
| L Parker | b Baily | 0 | ||
| H Weaver | not out | 0 | ||
| F Barningham | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| Total | 0 |
All out for nothing, not even an extra. The scorecard does not show how many balls they faced.
Even on such a day, there good things from such a match. Firstly, it was a bank holiday Monday and there would have been more time to sit and talk over the ale afterwards. Secondly, more than a century later, the match is still remembered.
