Last chance for Trescothick's nearly men

Rory Dollard
Saturday 18 September 2010 00:00 BST
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Marcus Trescothick and his Somerset side have had little more than 24 hours to digest their second major disappointment of the season but the former England opener is sure they will be ready for their final chance of silverware at Lord's today.

The 2010 season has been a case of so-near-yet-so-far for the West Country side, losing the Friends Provident 20 final on the last delivery and then edged out of the County Championship title by Nottinghamshire in the closing seconds of the campaign on Thursday.

Now they face Warwickshire in the Clydesdale Bank 40 final and Trescothick is sure the match's high profile is the perfect tonic. "We're feeling pretty good, we had a chat about what happened [at Durhan] in the dressing room and then we flew down to London last night and began focusing on the final," he said yesterday.

"We decided [to take the attitude] 'What better way to get over it than a big final at the home of cricket?'. It's the ideal scenario really, to be here at Lord's rather than lingering around for a few days thinking about it. The more you experience big games the more you get used to performing in that environment. We've been in that situation a couple of times this year."

Trescothick is proud of his side's ability to compete for trophies across the formats but is also wary of a Bears side who have enjoyed a big upturn in form in the last four weeks. "I think over the course of the season we've been a very consistent team, and to be up there contending for every trophy we're involved in goes to show that," he said. "We now need to go one step further. Looking at Warwickshire, they're probably the form team in county cricket right now and they'll be a real handful."

Warwickshire's director of cricket Ashley Giles, a former England team-mate of Trescothick, admits the match is a "season-defining" game for his side. And while some of his youngsters are making their first visit to Lord's, he also has two experienced Test players in Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott available.

Somerset (possible): M E Trescothick (capt), C Kieswetter, P D Trego, N R D Compton, J C Hildreth, J C Buttler (wkt), A V Suppiah, B J Phillips, A C Thomas, M Kartik, M L Turner

Warwickshire (possible): V Chopra, N M Carter, I R Bell (capt), I J L Trott, J O Troughton, D L Maddy, R Clarke, A G Botha, C R Woakes, R M Johnson (wkt), Imran Tahir

TV: Sky Sports 1, 2.30-9.30pm.

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