Cricket: Somerset Chase Grandstand Finish

A Saturday-night contrivance between the captains, by which Somerset would be set 420 off today's 96 overs, attempted to keep alive a match in which Somerset have the greater interest - hence the tough asking rate - but further rain yesterday did its best to make that impossible.

Mathematically, the home side could still replace Glamorgan in the promotion zone, but the chance is slim because a decent handful of points is all it will take to secure the Welshmen's ascent.

This game has been played in conditions varying from belting, blue-sky sunshine to ferocious storms, guaranteed to upset any calculations. It is also taking place beneath the shadow of tonight's committee meeting to discuss Somerset's future.

Those players out of contact include not only the seniors Rob Turner, Keith Parsons and Keith Dutch, but also most of the youngsters representing the future of the county, including the prodigious James Hildreth.

Such is the tension that the normally voluble chief executive Peter Anderson, always ready with an opinion, has barred himself from the press box for the remainder of this match. In the morning Somerset removed the second half of the Yorkshire order for 47 runs and then Peter Bowler, in his 19th season of country cricket, his last 10 with Somerset, stepped out to bat at Taunton in his last game.

Before this match he had given the county 9,566 elegant first-class runs at 41.05, and he now improved on that statistic. With Matt Wood in chirpy support he caressed 75, either side of two rain interruptions, and Somerset declared at tea 183 behind on the first innings. Yorkshire emerged in similarly lively mood, striding to set the negotiated target.

The first wicket brought 69 by the eighth over when Phil Jaques spooned a limp catch into the off side, and when Michael Lumb did the same two balls later some fans looked around the ground for Bombay bookmakers.

But with the captain Matthew Wood batting breezily in light that would normally have already brought the players off, rain swept in once more with Yorkshire 308 ahead.