WATCH, County | All 10 Somerset fielders crowd the pitch to help Leach deliver dramatic win over Surrey

09/13/2024

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There's nothing like last-day red-ball cricket, where all the investment of time, energy, and emotions culminates into resounding joy or utter heartbreak. The County Championship delivered one such classic in Taunton as Jack Leach capped off a Surrey collapse with minutes left on the clock.

The race for the County Championship title took a major twist at The Cooper Associates County Ground as Somerset defeated leaders Surrey by 111 runs on Day 4 to cut the gap at the top to a mere eight points with two rounds of fixtures remaining. The win was set up by a Tom Banton ton and Archie Vaughan fifer in the first innings that helped the hosts keep parity with their rivals before a limping Banton scored a heroic 46 in a 71-run stand for the last wicket to set a target of 221 for Surrey. The encounter seemed destined for a draw with Surrey holding fort comfortably with seven wickets left heading into the final session when Vaughan and Jack Leach triggered a fatal collapse to whittle the visitors down from 95/3 to 101/8 within seven overs.

Jordan Clark and Kemar Roach gave Surrey a second wind by playing out 70 deliveries, the eight runs in the partnership all coming off extras, to leave just minutes on the clock for Somerset to pull off a fabled win. Leach took the ball in hand for perhaps one last effort and in magical fashion, Clark nicked one behind to depart for a 47-run duck. With Roach at the other end having survived 30 balls already, Leach practically had just two balls in hand to somehow scalp Daniel Worrall before the Windies batter returned to strike. He thus stationed all nine fielders around the bat, with three slips, a fly slip, short-leg, leg gully, silly mid-off and mid-on, and a silly point. Worrall fended his first ball but the second pitched on good length and slid through along Leach's arm, beating the willow's inside edge and thumping into the pads.

All 11 Somerset men went up in unison and the umpire took little tile tim raise his finger, sending Leach wheeling away in celebration with all his teammates sprinting after him. The noise at the ground was deafening while even the broadcast cameras shook up and down with the stadium's energy, securing the match's legacy as a County classic.