This article is a summary of 2,629 first-class cricket matches played by Somerset County Cricket Club to the end of the 2012 season.
Contents
First-Class Status
Somerset is generally regarded as a first-class team from 1882 to 1885 and from their entry into the County Championship in 1891.
The record is complicated by a number of matches that W G Grace played for Gloucestershire against Somerset between 1879 and 1885. Wisden and Playfair recognise all of these as first-class and they are included in Grace's career figures, which have been his accepted figures since 1916 and are used in the Wikipedia article about Grace. The earlier matches in the series are not regarded as first-class by some statisticians and this article on Somerset CCC matches does not include the matches that are in dispute. For more information about this issue, see Variations in First-Class Cricket Statistics.
Some publications also include a match organised by Somerset against Cambridge University at Cambridge in 1892. Somerset only had 10 players and enlisted two additional players (Gregor MacGregor and Norman Cooper) in what became a 12-a-side match (although only 11 players fielded). The match was retitled Cambridge University v H.T. Hewett's XII, Hewett being the captain of the visiting side. The match was won by Hewett's team.
Summary against each opponent
In the following table the County Championship summary is limited to matches played from 1891. Inter-County matches played between 1882 and 1885 are listed separately as are County friendly matches.
The match against Oxford Universities in 2000 (which included Oxford Brookes University) is included here in the Oxford University totals. The match in 2008 against Cambridge University UCCE is included here in the Cambridge University totals.
Summary on each home ground
Currently first-class matches are only played at Taunton. Only 1 other first-class match has been played on the following grounds. This was a match played at Taunton between East Africa and Sri Lanka after both teams had played in the 1975 World Cup
In the following table click on the 'CA' to access the Cricket Archive Records section for the ground.
Between 1882 and 1885 10 inter-county home matches were played at Taunton (3 won, 7 lost) and 1 at Bath, Lansdown CC (won). Since 1891 2 friendly inter-county home matches have been played at Taunton (2 drawn), 1 at Bath, Recreation Ground (won) and 1 at Bristol, Imperial Athletic Ground (drawn).
Season by season summary
In the following table the final position is given together with the number of teams in the County Championship so that 5=/9 means that Somerset were equal 5th out of the 9 teams competing. From 2000 the County Championship has been divided into two divisions shown here as D1 for Division 1 and D2 for Division 2.
Abandoned matches
All these matches were abandoned because of bad weather, except for the match in 1914 which was abandoned because of the impending war.