Lancashire take control on day three v Glos
24 April 2022
Josh Bohannon scored a double century and James Anderson took his first wicket of the season for Lancashire against Gloucestershire at Emirates Old Trafford.
With the hosts declaring at tea on the third day on 556 for seven, this LV=Insurance County Championship Division One clash looks to be heading only one way after the visitors were reduced to 67 for three at the close still trailing by 237 runs going into the final day.
Resuming on 289 for three, Bohannon and his skipper, Dane Vilas, simply began where they left off the previous evening as they milked an increasingly ragged Gloucestershire bowling attack throughout the morning.
Vilas’ tireless running between the wickets kept the visitors firmly under pressure as the South African reached his half century off 51 balls before the slightly more guarded Bohannon reached his 150 from 328 balls.
The fourth wicket partnership continued to grow until Bohannon, having beaten his previous highest first class score of 174, reached his double century just before lunch quickly followed by Vilas registering his 24th first class century on the stroke of 1pm.
At the interval the quirky statistic that no wickets had fallen in each of the three uninterrupted morning sessions meant little to Gloucestershire who were still ruing and paying for their alarming capitulation on day one after a good start.
The partnership had just ticked past 200 when Vilas, looking to increase the run rate, toe-ended a Josh Shaw delivery straight to Miles Hammond at cover point to depart for 109.
Phil Salt joined Bohannon at the crease and breezed his way to 21 before he danced down the track to Zafar Gohar and was stumped by a grateful James Bracey.
The wicket provided at least some reward for the determined slow left armer who continued to bowl a nagging leg stump line throughout a mammoth spell that saw him send down 65 overs by the time he left the field having finished with four for 135 with Hassan his final wicket.
Bohannon’s mammoth innings finally ended on 231 when he mistimed a sweep shot off Graeme van Buuren and gloved one up in the air for Bracey to scamper to his left and claim.
The Bolton-born batter faced 467 balls and batted for 553 minutes in compiling a knock that will be certain to have made the England selectors ponder his attributes more closely.
Both Danny Lamb and Saqib Mahmood then enjoyed themselves before tea hitting four sixes between them and putting on an unbeaten 55 for the eighth wicket until Vilas called a halt to proceedings with Lancashire leading by 304.
A rusty looking Anderson had played second fiddle to Hassan during Gloucestershire’s first innings but he took the new ball and looked somewhere close to his best in an opening spell that saw him claim Australian Marcus Harris for seven with a steeply rising delivery that was edged through to Salt.
Mahmood, who could well be joining Anderson in the England Test attack after an impressive debut in the West Indies, was causing problems of his own and he accounted for Chris Dent whose loose cut shot to Salt was not what was called for by Gloucestershire as they teetered on 36 for two.
Meanwhile Hammond was standing firm and had hit five boundaries to prompt a recovery of sorts which was brought to a swift and brutal end by a wonderful Hassan yorker which left a bemused Bracey walking off on 14 and the Pakistani paceman cradling a broken stump such was the delivery’s velocity.
Hammond, unbeaten on 24, and van Buuren, on two not out, saw things through to the close but with seven wickets needed to claim victory Lancashire’s attack will be confident a second win of the season is within grasp.
