Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009

Somerset County Cricket Club competed in four domestic competitions during the 2009 English cricket season. They competed in the County Championship, Friends Provident Trophy, NatWest Pro40 League and the Twenty20 Cup. The team failed to win any competitions, prompting Director of Cricket Brian Rose to say: ‘We’ve had enough of being cricket’s nearly men’ Marcus Trescothick topped the national batting tables, scoring almost 3,000 runs in all competitions.

About Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009 in brief

Summary Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009Somerset County Cricket Club competed in four domestic competitions during the 2009 English cricket season. They competed in the County Championship, Friends Provident Trophy, NatWest Pro40 League and the Twenty20 Cup. The team failed to win any competitions, prompting Director of Cricket Brian Rose to say: ‘We’ve had enough of being cricket’s nearly men’ Marcus Trescothick topped the national batting tables, scoring almost 3,000 runs in all competitions in 2009. Ian Blackwell, captain of the side in 2005 and 2006, left for Durham after coach Andy Hurry and captain Justin Langer made it clear that they regarded fitness as a priority. Somerset promoted four players from their academy for the 2009 season, giving contracts to Jos Buttler, Adam Dibble, Chris Jones and James Burke. They also signed David Stiff, a fast bowler capped at Under-19 level for England, on a two-month contract at the beginning of the season, which was later extended to the end of the year. The county finished with too many draws to claim their first Championship title. They qualified for the Champions League Twenty20, where they progressed into the second group stage of the competition, but did not win any matches. The flat pitch at the County Ground, Taunton, did not help their efforts in the 2009 Championship. Six of Somerset’s eight matches contained scores of 500 or over in a single innings. In contrast, only one of Sussex’s total of 7425 declared was the highest total in the history of the Championship, while Murray Goodwin’s 344 not out in that match was the sixth highest score by a batsman in the competition’s history.

Somerset finished runners-up by one point in the Natwest Pro40, and were eliminated in the first knock-out round of the Friends Providents Trophy. They finished as losing finalists in the 2020 Cup, which meant that they qualified to play in the Champions league Twenty20. Somerset were captained for the third successive season by their Australian overseas player, Justin LANGER, who announced during the season that it would be his last with Somerset. John Francis and Keith Parsons both retired at the end-of 2008, citing lack of first-team opportunities for his departure, while at the age of 35, Parsons declared that: ‘There comes a time when your body tells you it’s time to pack in professional sport’ The Daily Telegraph provided a more positive outlook, claiming that the county had enough depth in batting and seam bowling to challenge again. They identified spin bowling as an area of weakness following the departure of Ian Blackwell. David Foot described Somerset’s opening partnerships with bat and ball as their main strengths, but predicted that the middle order would struggle to make an impact in four-day cricket. Although Marcus T Rescothik had been named as the Player of the Year, he was later revealed to be the PCA’s Most Valuable Player of The Year. The County Championship was won by Gloucestershire, with Somerset finishing in fourth place.