Neil Wagner delays Warwickshire with the bat
Neil Wagner, who struck a career-best 72 for Somerset against Warwickshire, will long-remember the second day of their weather-damaged LV=Insurance County Championship tussle at Edgbaston, but nobody else will.
To the 35 overs lost on day one, another 36 were wiped out on day two which ended with Warwickshire on 112 for three in reply to the visitors’ 215.
Somerset were lifted to 215 by a century stand for the ninth wicket between New Zealand all-rounder Wagner (72) and Josh Davey (46). It is still a modest total but represents a strong recovery from the wreckage of 37 for six. Chris Rushworth took five for 47.
Bears captain Will Rhodes (42) then kept his side’s reply from early ruin in this mid-table duel which may still yield a decisive result. Both sides have nothing to lose so might as well take a positive approach to the season’s dying embers.
After Somerset resumed on the second morning on 180 for eight, Wagner and Davey continued to bat with few alarms. They took their alliance to 119 in 25 overs before being parted in controversial fashion. Wagner, having hit 11 fours and two sixes and just passed his previous career best (70), was aghast to be adjudged caught behind off Olly Hanon-Dalby, evidently thinking the ball had clipped either pad or stumps. His sense of injustice only heightened when the innings was wrapped up next ball as Davey skied Rushworth to long off.
Warwickshire’s reply started badly when Kraigg Brathwaite’s run of ever-diminishing returns – 16, 9, 9, 8, 3, 0 – continued when his off-stump was plucked out by Lewis Gregory. Brathwaite fell in a brilliant first over by Gregory which could have brought a wicket every ball, but Rob Yates and Rhodes survived to add 53 in 16 overs before the former edged a Jack Brooks outswinger to wicketkeeper James Rew.
The light, perpetually moderate, closed in even further after lunch and Rhodes and Alex Davies survived for an hour in conditions of unremitting munge - low cloud, impending rain, floodlights on - before the umpires took the players off.
Rhodes lifted Davey to extra cover in one of the two slivers of play that followed before the light closed in for the final time. Only Wagner will recall this staccato day – unless the small crowd happened to include a connoisseur of watching covers being taken on and off - in which case, he or she had a treat because they were taken on and off with great speed and efficiency and considerable flair.
