NOT for the first time in the Benson and Hedges Cup the British Universities gave Somerset a nasty shock yesterday but, for the eighth time in eight meetings, the county prevailed. The game was reduced after heavy overnight rain to 20 overs a side and the scholars set a fair test by making 127 for six with positive, but also wise and remarkably unbucolic, batting.
Michael Burns and Graham Rose, hitting the ball even harder, seemed to have assured Somerset of a victory with plenty to spare, but from 98 for one after only 11 overs they batted so poorly against spirited spin bowling and fielding that they lost seven wickets for 21 runs and with two wickets left and only two full overs to go they still needed nine to win.
Adrian Pierson and Dermot Reeve, that veteran of the hectic finish, got the runs with six balls still in hand but had a tricky chance stuck in James Lawrence's right hand as Pierson pushed a return catch off the first ball of the 19th over, it would have been six to get and the last pair together.
Lawrence, briskish left-arm over, had borne the brunt of Rose's heavy blade and Burns, in his 55 off 42 balls, struck out equally fiercely after Simon Ecclestone had been run out by a direct hit from James Pyemont at backward point in the first over.
The game turned very suddenly, however, in the 12th over when Greg Loveridge, the New Zealand Test all-rounder whose chief ambition is to get a history first at Cambridge, bowled Rose as he slogged and persuaded Rob Turner to drive a leg-break to cover, second ball.
In the next three overs, Loveridge and the Northamptonshire and Loughborough left-arm spinner, Michael Davies, picked up four more wickets, Davies turning the ball threateningly.
It was all-action entertainment for a small crowd delighted to see any cricket at all, even in wan sunshine and a sharp easterly. The Universities look to have one of the better sides since they came within three runs of winning their quarter-final against Somerset in the Atherton/ Hussain year of 1989. Mark Chilton's off-driving was stately as he held the innings together after Loveridge and Anurag Singh had played some classy shots and Pyemont showed, too, how much cricket is in him.
The future of the combined universities concept is about to be debated by the First-Class Forum. The plan is for Durham to play some first-class games in addition to Oxford and Cambridge, but the death of the Benson and Hedges means that combined universities games will probably be limited to a fixture against touring sides and possibly some winter tours.
Somerset will be relieved to have the points in the bag. There is yet another new building at the County Ground this year, a large but sympathetic new stand beside the river, curiously angled towards the square as second slip would stand in relation to the batsman. Bowlers will henceforth run in, presumably, from the Slightly Crooked End.
But one must admire Somerset's enterprise. Their relatively new indoor cricket centre is one of the biggest and best in the land, the museum on the ground is excellent, the Millichamp and Hall shop entices the young with virgin white bats and the pavilion is, to this man's eyes at least, a happy blend of traditional design and modern facility.
Gradually the ramshackle old ground is becoming modernised, still lovable so long as the view to St James's church is never obscured. Even more important, six of the best young schoolboys in the West are getting year-round academy coaching, based on the indoor centre and Huish Episcopi school. Cricket and study can mix, as Somerset have just been reminded.