Prior to bat with broken finger as Sussex bid to avoid follow on

9:16pm Thursday 15th May 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Matt Prior will be able to bat for Sussex today despite breaking his finger.

The Sussex wicketkeeper suffered a harline fracture to the third finger on his right hand fielding a ball from Luke Wright on the first day of the Championship match against Somerset at Taunton.

Andrew Hodd stood in behind the stumps yesterday but Prior expects to make a full recovery in the next couple of days and will bat.

Coach Mark Robinson said: "Once it settles down after a couple of days it will be fine, although we hope that Matt doesn't get another blow on it."

It was a welcome piece of good news for the champions after Somerset continued to mock Chris Adams' decision to bowl first by racking up 558-8 declared.

Charl Willoughby then had Chris Nash caught at slip off the fourth ball of the reply before bad light intervened with Sussex 19-1 in reply, their first target 408 to avoid the follow-on.

Nash followed a ball from the left-armer and was well taken low down by Justin Langer but Yardy reacted positively to the setback by hitting three boundaries in Steffan Jones' opening over before the batsmen were offered the light.

Overnight rain delayed the start until 2.30pm with 57 overs lost in total on day two but even under overcast skies there was little encouragement for the Sussex bowlers, although they did pick up a second bonus point.

The wickets were shared around but it was Corey Collymore who impressed despite being unsuccessful.

The West Indian again worked up decent pace and is certainly not work-shy. He bowled eight overs unchanged when play resumed, beat the bat on several occasions and only conceded 17 runs.

Even as well-set a batsman as James Hildreth, who had resumed on 126, could not afford to take any liberties but the other Sussex bowlers all suffered punishment.

The pitch is only 80 yards from where three new stands are being erected and hard hats came in handy as Hildreth, Craig Kieswetter and Peter Trego peppered the building works.

There were 304 runs from boundaries in Somerset's innings including ten sixes but there is no reason why Sussex cannot respond with a big total of their own on a pitch which is still so easy paced.

Hildreth added 116 in 22 overs with Zander de Bruyn for the fourth wicket before Mike Yardy held a swirling catch at mid-wicket off a top-edged pull to give Ollie Rayner his second wicket. If only Yardy had taken the previous chance Hildreth had offered 140 runs earlier.

South African de Bruyn had earlier played on to Luke Wright while Jason Lewry picked up his first Championship wicket of the season to remove the dangerous Ian Blackwell before he could do too much damage.

In the build-up to the game Trego had targetted his opposite number Robin Martin-Jenkins as the opponent he had to outperform to enhance his claims as a potential England one-day all-rounder.

Whether Martin-Jenkins read his comments is not known but their exchanges were spicy enough and Trego seemed to be making a statement when he twice deposited him onto the concrete as Somerset charged towards a declaration.

Martin-Jenkins had the final word, however, when he deceived Trego, whose 41 came off 40 balls, with a slower ball and he picked up a second wicket but only after Craig Kieswetter had helped add 39 in 21 balls after tea before Langer called a halt.