Match report provided by the ECB Reporters Network.
VITALITY BLAST SOUTH GROUP
Middlesex: 78 all out
Somerset: 81-1
Somerset won the toss and elected to field
Riley Meredith led the rout as Somerset bowled Middlesex out for 78 at Lord’s – their lowest ever score in the history of Vitality Blast cricket.
The 27-year-old Tasmanian with six white-ball caps for his country took 4-12, while Craig Overton (2-21), Josh Davey (2-13) and the competition’s leading wicket-taker Ben Green (2-17) took two apiece in the 9-wicket romp.
Middlesex only got within two runs of their previous worst score – 80 against Kent at Lord’s three years ago - thanks to as defiant 10th-wicket stand of 28 between Tom Helm and Noah Cornwell, who top scored with 15 apiece.
Tom Banton, 49 not out and Tom Kohler-Cadmore 30 not out were both given lives as Somerset sealed a third win of the campaign. Middlesex remain bottom of the South Group.
As well as Meredith and Overton bowled up top, Middlesex contributed to this debacle by batting with reckless abandon. Pinch-hitter Martin Andersson crashed two fours through the covers in the opening over after Middlesex were put in, but once he skied Meredith to mid-on in the next, the rot set in.
Stephen Eskinazi fell to a cross-batted slog, before Meredith had Holden taken at mid-on to an even worse heave. Overton cranked up the pressure with a maiden to Ryan Higgins, during which the all-rounder failed to lay bat on ball and in the aftermath Joe Cracknell, back in the side for the sick Leus Du Plooy edged Meredith’s best ball of the match through to wicketkeeper Banton.
Davies too had perished by the time the opening bowlers took their leave with the Lord’s tenants in tatters at 34-6.
The competition’s leading wicket-taker Ben Green didn’t enter the fray until the score was 50-7 but made an instant impression taking the wickets of Luke Hollman and Blake Cullen with his first two balls.
Cornwell saved the hat-trick before celebrating his call-up to the England U19s by clubbing Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory into the Grandstand but that was about the only cause for cheer for the beleaguered hosts.
Will Smeed fell for only one caught on the fence off Helm and had Davies clung on to an inside edge from Kohler-Cadmore in the next over bowled by Cullen Middlesex might have made a fist of it, but the chance was grassed.
Middlesex’s misery was compounded when Cornwell was forced from the field mid-over with a hand injury caused trying to take a return catch off one smashed back at him by Banton.
Thereafter the Somerset duo settled down, both striking sixes into the Grandstand as the Cider-men romped home with 45 balls to spare.
Middlesex
Somerset
