Somerset v Gloucestershire tomorrow.

I have just got back from the rain affected match. As a Somerset fan I’m glad the rain came to give us a point but Gloucestershire were going to walk it. We were really lucky, rain came at about 3.30 when Gloucestershire were motoring but only in the 6th over and you need 10 to have a match. Somerset were going well with Trego and Hildreth at 145-2 when Howell produced a great over to get Trego and Renshaw before Somerset collapsed with two poor run outs.
Gloucestershire bowled quite well after Trego was out. They stopped Somerset scoring and from looking at a score of 350+ Somerset limped to 220. They must be really jarred off with the weather. Bad luck!

I watched that one on TV - it was a great finish! Seems a shame that both Somerset and Gloucester came up short after promising starts in the tournament.

I was at the Roses match on Tuesday which was also a high scoring thriller.  Lyth and, particularly Willey, hit Yorks to what felt like an insurmountable 380 (Old Trafford tends to be low scoring).  But Lancs didn't fold.  Jennings provided a good anchor and Livingstone played a superb innings (one that should have selectors interested it was that good) to get them properly into the game.  He scored 75 at a strike rate of nearly 200.  It was a superb exhibition of modern one day batting and it was thoroughly necessary.  Then Villas came in and carried on where Livingstone left off and there was a moment where amazingly the game seemed to have tiled in Lancs favour - they needed 140 off the last 20 with 7 wickets.  To get to that point chasing 380 was pretty remarkable really.  Unfortunately, it fell apart at that point.  Having done the hard work Villas and Jennings both threw their wickets away and I was thinking game over.  However, Hameed kept Lancs in it with a very useful 30 odd - hopefully this is evidence that his confidence is back, I think he needed to score a few easy one day runs to get him going again.  He was then removed by a stunning inswinging yorker from Willey - best ball I've seen all summer, deserved to be a match winner.  Again, I was thinking that's it game over.  But a very unlikely 50 run 9th wicket partnership between Bailey and Parry had Yorkshire genuinely rattled (Plunkett completely went to pieces and should have been taken off for 2 waist high deliveries) before Willey returned to polish things off with an over left. Excellent match - I don't normally enjoy high scoring limited overs games as it gets quite repetitive and I like balance between the bat and ball.  But this was an exception because the pendulum swung throughout the whole 2nd innings.  Bizaarly, Lancs should probably kicking themselves they didn't win it despite having to chase down the highest score ever recorded in a 50 Over game at Old Trafford!