Alfonso Thomas takes four wickets in four balls as Somerset crush Sussex

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jun/10/somerset-sussex-county-championship-match-report

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Alfonso Thomas is 37, the age when many bowlers consider forsaking the red ball for the more lucrative white one. Indeed earlier in the season, when the body was rebelling a little, he admitted pondering whether to concentrate solely on the one-day game. “Those kind of thoughts have gone through my head, where I’d just pack the red ball away and go to the white”, he said.

To Somerset’s delight and relief, Thomas has resisted that temptation and on Tuesday he himself was delighted about that. On a blustery morning against Sussex he took four wickets in four balls, something that was beyond Jack White, Ian Botham, Joel Garner, Mushtaq Ahmed or Andy Caddick. In fact, Thomas is the only Somerset cricketer to have accomplished this and he is now regarded with similar affection in Taunton as those stalwarts of the club.

The procession of wickets came from nowhere. Sussex, 26 without loss overnight, had negotiated five overs without much bother, whereupon Thomas made his remarkable intervention. First he bowled James Anyon, a makeshift opener. His next ball thudded into the front pad of Rory Hamilton-Brown, not a natural No3 but pressed into service because Michael Yardy’s injury. Up went the finger.

The next man was Ed Joyce, Sussex’s captain, best batsman and a centurion in the first innings when he had left the ball with exquisite judgement. In bounded Thomas from around the wicket. Too late Joyce tried to withdraw his bat, which feathered a catch to the wicketkeeper.

With the over complete, Thomas watched from mid on as Peter Trego dismissed Chris Nash. Then he skipped in to Matt Machan – somehow taking a hat-trick adds a spring to the step even of a 37-year-old – and from the inside edge the stumps were splattered again. Thus Sussex had collapsed from 33 for none to 33 for five.

The pitch was not the archetypal Taunton belter. But there were not that many demons lurking out there. Thomas’s spell – he finished with five for 40 – ensured Somerset victory in a match that fluctuated vigorously over three days. He was well supported by Trego, who has become a miserly old bowler and there were several spectacular catches, two by Marcus Trescothick. Somerset needed 104 for victory and they got them a little frenetically inside 21 overs with six wickets to spare, Nick Compton hitting three sixes into the Botham Stand