SOMERSET have had to settle for second place in the County Championship after their final match of the season against Surrey at Taunton ended in a draw.

Going into the game the Cidermen knew Leicestershire needed to beat Warwickshire for them to have any chance of overtaking the eventual champions, which in the end didn’t happen and Somerset ended runners up for the seventh time this century.

On the Thursday morning Surrey won the toss and after choosing to bat first were dismissed for 422 in 121.3 overs, Jack Leach taking 4 for 91 and Gregory 3 for 85.

Somerset’s reply was quite remarkable - 731 all out ,the second highest ever total scored by the county in first class cricket, bettered only by the 850 for 7 against Middlesex at Taunton in 2007.

The total included a career best 307 by Tom Abell from 407 deliveries with 31 x 4s and 8 x 6s during a stay of 9 hours and 8 minutes at the crease. Abell shared in two record breaking Somerset partnerships. He set a new fourth wicket record of 334 with Tom Lammonby, who made a career best of 229 which came from 359 balls and included 28 x 4s and 2 x 6s as he occupied the crease for 7 hours and 19 minutes.

Abell also helped to set a new record for the eighth wicket when he added 195 with Migael Pretorius who hit 84 off 83 balls with 9 x 4’s and 4 x 6’s.

Batting for a second time 209 in arrears on a rain affected final day Surrey had reached 127 for 5 off 54 overs when the players shook hands at 4.30pm and the game ended in a draw from which Somerset took 13 points and their visitors 12.

Straight after the game Somerset captain Lewis Gregory said: “There were some amazing moments in the game - a career best for Tom Lammonby and Tom Abell’s triple hundred, but a little bit of bad weather today hurt us as we were trying to force a result.

“If we had won the toss we would have batted as well, but in the end we got ourselves into a position where we could try to win. Credit to the guys and I thought we fought really hard to bowl them out for 400 was good. Then we knew that we needed to bat big to try and force a result and we managed to do that; the guys were ruthless and got some big scores which put us into a good position.

“I am immensely proud of the lads; they have put in a lot of work this summer to get us to where we are. There’s obviously a lot of disappointment because two weeks ago we were in a great place to win the thing that we have been trying to win for a very long time.

“There are probably a couple of games in the middle of the year that are the defining moments - two when we were in a really good place but didn’t show the ruthlessness needed and lost them both.”

He added: “We have done a lot right this year; we put ourselves in a fabulous position two weeks ago but unfortunately didn’t quite have the stuff to get us over the line.”