Bailey’s burst lifts Lancashire after Abell hundred

Somerset 339 for 7 (Abell 135, Trescothick 60, Bailey 4-53) v LancashireScorecard

When the 2015 season ended Tom Abell and Tom Bailey shared more than a first name; both cricketers were entitled to feel that their careers were launched. Abell’s 726 Championship runs had included a maiden century against Hampshire on a September day which many Somerset supporters will recall as long as they can remember anything. Bailey’s 35 Division Two wickets had proclaimed the arrival of a fine seam bowler.

Since then “Mother Cricket”, that strange, mystical figure often cited by the old coaches, has treated both players with something less than maternal kindness. Abell has been injured and out of form; Bailey’s torn side muscle has kept him out of Lancashire’s team since the first Roses match ended in early June.

And yet, on the last day of August Abell and Bailey found that what this game sometimes denies, it also restores to its most faithful servants. Somerset’s stylish opener made 135 in a match his team may need to win if they are to keep the pressure on Middlesex and Yorkshire at the top of the table. And as their rivals’ wickets fell at Edgbaston and Southampton the band of travelling fans could be encouraged by a scoreboard which read 267 for 2.

Once again Somerset supporters are daring to hope and on afternoons like this Abell threatens to fulfil their lovely dreams.

The mood among Lancashire loyalists, whose side is not yet safe from completing a hat-trick of relegations, was somewhat different. There’s a members’ forum here on the second evening and one or two of the hierarchy’s more trenchant critics may have been wondering how much it cost to rent a set of stocks. After all, at 5.45 pm their …

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