Wainwright Joins Hampshire Ahead Of Somerset Trip

  MATCH PREVIEW 

Somerset v Hampshire

Specsavers County Championship Division 1

 Tuesday 23 – Friday 26 August (11:00 – 18:00)

Taunton

The return of Captain James Vince and Sean Ervine has boosted Hampshire’s hopes of securing back-to-back victories in the Specsavers County Championship and extending a 20-year unbeaten run in first-class cricket at Taunton.

With Liam Dawson’s call-up to the England ODI squad, Hampshire have brought in left-arm spinner David Wainwright on a match-by-match basis.

The former Yorkshire and Derbyshire man is hugely experienced in first-class cricket with 80 appearances to his name and he comes straight into the 14-man squad to face Somerset.

Hampshire Squad:

Hampshire’s skipper, Vince, is set for his first County Championship involvement in over three months, having been away with England’s Test and one-day squads, and Ervine has made a full recovery from an ankle injury.

Brad Wheal has been selected in Hampshire’s 14-man squad after taking 6-51 in an impressive performance at Trent Bridge. Andy Carter took five wickets on his Hampshire debut against his former club to warrant his selection.

The Opposition:

Jack Leach claimed nine Durham wickets for 115 runs in Somerset’s last match, and Roelof van der Merwe took eight, including 4-45 in the second innings.

The experienced batting duo of Chris Rogers and Marcus Trescothick were restricted during Durham’s visit to Taunton, but Hampshire cannot ignore their combined tally of nearly 50,000 first-class runs. Trescothick is 58 runs away from 1,000 this season.

Recent Form:

Hampshire are unbeaten in their last ten County Championship matches at Taunton, last losing on the road to Somerset in August 1996.

Eight of the last 11 meetings between Hampshire and Somerset at Taunton have ended in a draw – Hants’ latest victory came two games ago, with an innings win in 2011.

Hampshire’s trip to Somerset comes after a 176-run win against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, which moved them off bottom spot in Division One.

Did You Know?

• Jimmy Adams has posted two big scores on his last two visits to Taunton: 207 in 2011 and 136 in 2015.

What The Team Say:

Hampshire Director of Cricket Giles White speaking about David Wainwright: “If you look at the last game at Taunton it spun a lot and with Liam Dawson with England it left a place for a second spinner. He’s been in really good form for Shropshire and Craig White knows him well from his time at Yorkshire and he seems the right fit for us at this time.

“It was nice to see everyone contributing in the win against Notts and hopefully we can takes those positives into this game and get a good result against Somerset. There’s a good spirit in the group and they are enjoying their cricket but tomorrow is another challenge and the first session will be key in the match.”

Full Hampshire Squad:

Coverage:

Live text commentary will be available via the Hampshire Cricket Twitter and Facebook pages. A feed to these will also be available on this page.

There will be ball-by-ball commentary available on BBC Radio Solent online at bbc.co.uk