Marcus Trescothick called it "a boring draw" – and in the end, it was. But Somerset had mixed emotions about the way in which their LV= County Championship match against Yorkshire fizzled out.
Trescothick and Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale shook hands on a draw at 4.50pm – with both being left to rue the loss of the opening day to rain.
However, Somerset had started the final day still needing 69 more runs to avoid the follow-on, which they did, thanks chiefly to James Hildreth's first century of the season – the 28th first-class hundred of his career.
By the time Somerset were dismissed for 310 – nine runs beyond the magic number of 301 to avoid following on – Yorkshire had a lead of 140. When the visitors slumped to 21-3 in their second innings, it was the hosts who were ruing the fact the opening day had been washed out, yet Yorkshire had advanced to the relative safety of 104-4 by the time the captains shook hands on a draw.
A boring draw it was – but, as Trescothick remarked, a boring draw is a significant improvement for a Somerset side who had lost by nine wickets and then an innings in their past two Championship matches.
"It was just a boring draw in the end, wasn't it?" asked Trescothick. "The rain we had on day one didn't allow anybody to try to push on for a victory. It might have been an interesting game if we had had the time to do so. The pitch was better and it was pretty conducive to batting well on.
"If you want to compare it to the other games, then we can take quite a lot of positives. Hildy getting a hundred was a really big achievement: a hundred on any ground, on any pitch, is nice to get.
"I thought we batted really well – for the last four or five wickets we really put up a good fight. Then, with the new ball, when we bowled second time around, we bowled really well. It's something we've got to try to continue."
Somerset had resumed on 232-6 – still 218 runs behind Yorkshire's first-innings 450, and, crucially, still 69 short of avoiding the follow-on. Realistically, if the hosts made it to 301, the game was over as a contest, and they looked fluent and confident during the early stages of the final day.
Hildreth, from an overnight 76, and Craig Meschede, who resumed on 16, played superbly, with the former bringing up a 150-ball hundred with a single off Steven Patterson.
Doubts, however, may have crept into their minds when Meschede drove Patterson to short cover for 32. That signalled the end of his 100 partnership with Hildreth, with Somerset still 29 runs shy of avoiding the follow-on. By the time Moin Ashraf took out Hildreth's middle stump with a Yorker – the batsman having scored a superb 115 – Somerset were only three runs short of 301.
In the next over, George Dockrell pulled Adil Rashid behind square for four to bring up the magic number, with the Irishman eventually playing on to his stumps off Ashraf for a key 14-run cameo.
Steve Kirby was the final man to fall for Somerset, being held by Gary Ballance at first slip off Ashraf, giving the visitors a lead of 140, with no realistic chance of a run-chase, similar to those remarkable Somerset chases of 2009 and 2010 against the same opponents, being set up.
Somerset made a positive start to Yorkshire's second innings, Kirby having Joe Sayers caught at second slip by Trescothick for 1 – and then, two balls later, trapping Phil Jaques lbw for a duck as he offered no shot.
Yorkshire's 14-2 became 21-3 when skipper Gale was lbw to Trego for 4, while, after tea, Ballance fell for 31 when he skied Dockrell to Kirby, running towards the boundary at mid-on, as he mistimed a slog.
But there was still no chance of a result, with first-innings centurions Adam Lyth (57) and Rashid (5) seeing Yorkshire through to the 4.50pm cut-off, at which stage the match was declared a draw.
Somerset are next in action when they host Glamorgan in the YB40 tomorrow at 1.45pm.
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