Hampshire 285 for 7 (McManus 91*, Northeast 67) trail Somerset 360 by 75 runs
Such are the privations of the Covid pandemic that Tractor Driver, Somerset's most famous and voluble fan, has temporarily been banished from his traditional stamping ground on Gimblett Hill. So it was that his plaintive cry for Somerset to deliver wickets with the second new ball came from an unlikely vantage spot behind the Ondaatje Alcohol Free Stand, where presumably 'Big T', as his t-shirt identified him, was particularly careful not to breathe the contents of his can of cider on those less inclined towards alcoholic sustenance.
Tractor's imploring did not last long, not because Somerset answered his call - one wicket was the sum of their response - but perhaps because it was a gloriously mellow summer's evening, or perhaps because Lewis McManus had worn him down as much as the Somerset attack.
David Foot, one of county cricket's most romantic and empathetic writers, died last week at his Bristol home, at 92, and, for all his West Country affinity, he would have admired the manner in which McManus' workmanlike innings evened the balance and guaranteed two further pay days ahead.
After surviving an early short-pitched examination by Marchant de Lange, this was a shrewdly-assembled affair, built around careful drives and enlivened by an occasional reverse-sweep. He finished unbeaten on 91 from 160 balls, Hampshire 75 behind on 285 for 7 and is unnervingly in range of a second first-class hundred to add to the one he made after taking over the gloves from Adam Wheater five years ago.
As McManus' resistance grew, it was natural for Somerset supporters to rue the absence of Craig Overton and Jack Leach, who are both in charge of hand sanitiser in the England bubble. In the old days, Somerset might even have indulged in a little gentle tomfoolery to remove him.
As Foot tells in his final book, Footsteps from East Coker, his favourite Somerset cricketer, Arthur Wellard, a mighty smiter of sixes who switched from seam to offspin after the war to rest aching limbs, would occasionally take out his teeth on hot days and field at silly mid-off. "It changed his appearance considerably," told Foot, "and, according to several of the pros, his improvised dentistry bordered on gamesmanship."
The county cricket media - denuded these days - has adapted to the determined, technology-driven professionalism of the age, but in Foot's heyday a great affinity for county cricket's players could come alongside a blithe disregard for watching every ball, especially if the day was warm and there was good company to be found for a couple of lunchtime jars at the Masons Arms where Jeremy Leyton kept the ale in decent nick.
Stories of Wellard and Harold Gimblett - about whom Foot wrote a magnificent biography - would be interspersed by the sort of personal verbal take-downs between rivals and colleagues that were once ten-a-penny in most cricket press boxes in the country. Dissections of great literature could share the stage with discussions of the latest sex scandal or dressing-room tittle-tattle. At the close, a masterful report, often no more than 450 words, would be filed to the Guardian and when its author returned home to Bristol, his wife Anne would never enquire about the cricket, merely the company. "Was it a good box?" she would ask.
Somerset's 360 on the opening day had set Hampshire an exacting task, even though batting conditions were slightly easier. Their innings followed a similar path, half the side dismissed for 110 before McManus began to organise a worthy response on an interesting day which rarely captured the heights of the one before.
Somerset rid themselves of Hampshire's vulnerable top order by the 13th over, 31 on the board: Josh Davey defeated Ian Holland through extra bounce before de Lange took two wickets in an over, Tom Alsop caught low at third slip and Cameron Steel, who played briefly for Somerset's 2nd X1 as a teenager and who is on loan from Durham, patting back a short ball and berating himself for not pulling it. De Lange bowled some fast balls and if Somerset get him right he can make a sizeable impression on their Championship challenge.
Sam Northeast and James Vince are the heartbeat of this Hampshire batting order - Vince's position as low as No. 5 somewhat debatable considering that he once toured Australia as England's No. 3. Vince buckled down to the task, nevertheless, and looked thoroughly at ease until he was caught at backward point, square-driving, for 29. Northeast provided the most pleasing innings of the day, 67 from 145 balls, before he miscued a pull off Tom Abell and skied to the keeper. The ball took an age to fall and it felt as Davies held it that Somerset could gain a sizeable advantage.
Abell had passed McManus' outside edge with his first ball; the next ball was edged just short of slip. Somerset's captain marched back to his mark with straight-backed military bearing, convinced that the game was there to be won. The back never slouched, but the scoreboard did as McManus, staunchly supported by Keith Barker, found another 128 runs in the post-tea session, reverse-sweeping Roelof van der Merwe to reach his half-century.
The new ball was taken at 216 for 6 which told of Somerset's discipline, but they looked weary in the final hour and, although they budged Barker, caught at slip to give Davey his third wicket of the day, McManus bedded himself in for the duration.
