Murali's absence may be costly

Lancashire 324 Somerset 385-9

There are many at Old Trafford who believe the loss of the overseas player Muttiah Muralitharan – the great Sri Lankan off-spinner is now on international duty until September – will cost Lancashire their chance of winning the County Championship.

Watching Gary Keedy and Chris Schofield bowling on a wearing and increasingly helpful track yesterday, you felt the pessimists had a point. Both the Lancashire spinners turned the ball, sometimes quite sharply in Keedy's case, but neither exerted enough control to threaten to run through the Somerset batting as Murali, who had taken 45 wickets in six championship games, might have done. Comparisons might be unfair but are unquestionably pertinent, and coming into this game Keedy had four wickets in five games, while Schofield, on his solitary appearance against Northamptonshire, took 1 for 86.

The consequence was that Somerset were able to chisel out a first innings lead that might yet be crucial. Resuming on 77 for 1, Michael Burns had gone on to a solid half-century before disappointingly driving a low return catch to Keedy, bowling his left-armers from the Warwick Road End.

Shortly afterwards Keedy turned one away from Mark Lathwell, who edged a simple catch to Schofield, and when Schofield bowled Jamie Cox, playing back one which hurried through him, the visitors were in some difficulty.

But Somerset owe their high championship position largely to their resilience, and the middle order got their heads down. Playing straight, keeping out the good ones and hitting the loose stuff, of which there was plenty, Peter Bowler, Rob Turner and Ian Blackwell all followed Burns past 50.

Bowler, who went to his half century by hefting Schofield for six, went on to 65 before Keedy got him, the dismissal an almost exact replica of that of Lathwell. Keith Dutch looked set to follow suit before being given out lbw to Glen Chapple, but Turner and Blackwell took Somerset into the lead and were closing in on a century partnership when the left-handed Blackwell was bowled by John Wood.