da dobrowin： Peter Bowler, a stalwart of over 250 first class games, celebrated histhirty-seventh birthday with his third century of the season as Somersetevened up its County Championship clash with Durham at Chester-le-Streettoday
Staff and agencies30-Jul-2000Peter Bowler, a stalwart of over 250 first class games, celebrated histhirty-seventh birthday with his third century of the season as Somersetevened up its County Championship clash with Durham at Chester-le-Streettoday.To experienced Bowler watchers, news of this latest century will come as nosurprise as the situation was tailor made for a man of such a temperamentand application. He restarted his innings at 62 today and built slowlytoward his landmark, so much so that he had still not ascended to it bylunch. When it did come – in a minute over six hours and from 283 balls -the generous and spontaneous applause that it prompted from the crowd was ameasure in itself of its quality and importance. By the time that SimonBrown (3/69) eventually found a way to beat his defences with an offcutter, he had reached 107 and had added a magnificent 157 in partnershipwith the almost equally resilient Graham Rose (82*) for the seventh wicket.The pair had taken Somerset from a dire position to one of near paritywith the Durham first innings of 292. That the tail enders could onlycontribute another thirty-five to the total after Bowler made his exit onlyreinforced the centrality of their twin contributions.Here a word of praise needs to be devoted specifically to Rose, anotherplayer nearer to forty years of age than thirty. When the Somerset inningswas eventually terminated at 280, he was left only eighteen short of hisown century – one that would likewise have been well deserved. To add tohis good day, he then had opener Michael Gough (5) edging to second slip asDurham revisited the crease. With the score on 29, he struck again, thistime causing first innings centurion Jon Lewis (12) to shoulder arms andignominiously lose his off stump to a delivery that kept slightly low as itswung in toward him. His was a fabulous all-round performance.Regrettably, late interruptions for rain and bad light then clippedtwenty-four overs off the day just when the match had entered perhaps itsmost critical phase of all. With Durham positioned at 73/3 by day’s end,it seems that both teams will need to play aggressively in the morning ifan outright result is to be engineered.For the home team today, John Wood (5/88) was easily the pick of thebowlers – his heart and gusto infectious on a hot morning. Its cause was,however, badly hampered by the loss of Melvyn Betts (1/22) to a knee strain.