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Page last updated at 17:49 GMT, Thursday, 20 May 2010 18:49 UK

Hildreth hammers Somerset to victory over Yorkshire

LV COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION ONE, Taunton:
Somerset 377 & 364-4 beat Yorkshire 405 & 333-4 dec
Somerset 21 pts, Yorkshire 6 pts
Match scorecard


James Hildreth
James Hildreth also scored an unbeaten hundred against Sussex in the CB40 Cup

A brilliant 68-ball century from James Hildreth guided Somerset to their first Championship win of the season as Yorkshire suffered their first defeat.

Set a generous target of 362 to win in 68 overs after Yorkshire declared on 333-4, the home side skated to a six-wicket win with 32 balls to spare.

Hildreth hit a superb 102, backed by 93 from Zander de Bruyn, Nick Compton (65) and Marcus Trescothick (53).

Yorkshire also lost at Taunton last season after setting a big target.

In fact, Somerset's four-wicket win in June 2009 came after being set an even bigger target of 476, at a similar run rate of just over five an over.

Some declaration bowling from Nick Compton and Hildreth allowed Yorkshire to close their second innings on 333-4 during the morning session.

Stand-in Yorkshire skipper Jacques Rudolph, deputising for England Lions absentee Andrew Gale, agreed to contrive a finish with opposite number Trescothick. And Anthony McGrath (83) and Rudolph (66) proved the main profiteers.

Somerset then began cautiously and were only 21 without loss off eight overs at lunch.

They had progressed to 37 when last year's main centurion Arul Suppiah had his off-stump removed by Steven Patterson.

Trescothick then fell shortly afterwards, lofting Adil Rashid to David Wainwright at long-on - and still there was little sign of the fireworks to come.

Compton blossomed from a sketchy start to play his part with a 60-ball half-century before edging a leg-break from Rashid to be caught at point.

Then came the match-winning stand of 149 in 19 overs between de Bruyn and Hildreth, both making liberal use of the reverse sweep against the spinners.

The game was as good as won by the time de Bruyn was caught at long-off attempting to hit Wainwright over the ropes. But it was Hildreth who shone the brightest.

The timing of his sweeps and reverse sweeps meant that even the increasing number of boundary fielders could not halt his rapid scoring rate.

By the end, he had faced 70 balls, hitting 10 fours and a six. And, to cap a great day for Somerset, 19-year-old keeper Jos Buttler smashed three fours and two sixes as he finished the Tykes off with 31 off 17 balls at the end.

Yorkshire remain second in the table, only seven points behind Nottinghamshire, who also lost, but just six points ahead of third-placed Lancashire, who they meet in the first Roses Match of the summer a week on Saturday.


Somerset batsman James Hildreth told BBC Somerset:
"I scored a couple of hundreds last year but this year I was looking for more consistency and trying to develop that through a more positive mindset.

"It's brilliant batting with Jos (Buttler) as he scores freely and he's quite an attacking player. He doesn't build any pressure up for me at the other end.

"We had to pick our shots carefully and we got a lot of runs just by running hard between the wickets and picking up a few boundaries through the gaps."



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see also
Lyth misses out on second century
19 May 10 |  Counties
Suppiah leads reply for Somerset
18 May 10 |  Counties
Lyth gives Tykes edge on Somerset
17 May 10 |  Counties


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