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| Trescothick has been in good form for Somerset this season. |
After a break from the four-day
competition, Lancashire will host Somerset where they hope to carry the
momentum from their limited overs success into their Championship campaign.
As is often the case, the Natwest T20 Blast
presented Lancashire with the opportunity to regain some confidence and after
achieving four successive victories in this format they are top of the North
Group.
Spirits appear to be high at Emirates Old
Trafford, a position that has been enhanced by the arrival of Andrew Flintoff,
but survival in the Championship remains a priority for Lancashire.
Their last match of the County Championship
against Yorkshire ended in a draw, but the Red Rose finished the match with the
greatest cause to believe that they could win, before rain brought the match to
a premature close.
Lancashire may have finally found form at
the ideal time, but there is still room for improvement with the bat, despite
achieving their highest first-innings total of the season.
Somerset have, by all accounts, exceeded
expectation in the Championship this season and are the only team in Division
One not to have lost a match so far. The experience of Marcus Trescothick has
been crucial to their success, having scored 416 runs at an average of 52.00.
The visitors were also subjected to poor
weather in the last match after amassing an imposing first-innings total of 411
at home to Warwickshire and would also like to believe that they could have converted
this position into a win.
With that in mind, both teams will be
hungry for success and if the weather does not intervene, this has the
potential to be a highly competitive encounter.
Key
men:
Lancashire:
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| Smith has been in fantastic form across all three formats. |
Tom Smith is in the form of his life with
both bat and ball and continues to be the most valuable player in the
Lancashire team. After falling to 183-6 in the Roses match, his fourth
half-century of the season led a late-order surge as Glen Chapple and Kyle Hogg
helped Lancashire to reach their highest first-innings total of the season.
With the ball he was equally destructive and his second
five-wicket haul of the season gave Lancashire a useful lead of 82 runs, one
that may have developed into a tough run chase for Yorkshire if the weather had
not intervened. Smith now has 20 wickets, making him the highest wicket-taker
for Lancashire so far this season. He has also accumulated 355 runs, which puts
him in second place behind Paul Horton (388).
Somerset:
Marcus Trescothick has been a crucial member of this Somerset
side as both a leader and a batsman. Before the start to the season, many will
have put Somerset amongst those who would have been consider as ‘relegation
candidates’, but Trescothick has led his team towards the top of the table, as
he continues to prove his critics wrong with his personal contributions.
He has accumulated 416 runs in eight Championship innings and is
one of only a handful of batsmen to have registered two centuries in the
four-day campaign. Trescothick, 38, applies himself to all three formats of the
game with a professional temperament and there are few players that can boast
to have scored over 21,000 first-class runs.
Lancashire team: Glen Chapple (captain), Andrea Agathangelou, Karl Brown, Steven Croft, Alex Davies (wicketkeeper), Kyle Hogg, Paul Horton, Kabir Ali, Simon Kerrigan, Stephen Parry, Ashwell Prince, Tom Smith, Wayne White.
Somerset team: Marcus Trescothick (captain), James Hildreth, Alex Barrow, Nick Compton, George Dockrell, Craig Kieswetter (wicketkeeper), Craig Meschede, Johann Myburgh, Craig Overton, Jamie Overton, Alviro Petersen, Alfonso Thomas and Peter Trego.
Weather conditions:
Sunday has the potential to be a largely pleasant day with
plenty of sunshine around. For the first time this season, the coin toss might
not be influenced by ‘early season’ conditions, but the weather is expected to
deteriorate as the match progresses.
Match facts:
Date: 1st-4th
June.
Ground:
Emirates Old Trafford.
Time:
11am
Odds: Lancashire
(11/10), Somerset (8/11) (Skybet)
Form: Lancashire
(DLD), Somerset (DWD)
Umpires:
Neil Mallender and Steve Garrat.
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