Edness: ‘We won’t back off now’

Somerset skipper Jekon Edness believes complacency is the only thing between his side and a sustained period of Cup Match dominance.

The wicket-keeper led his side to a draw at the Wellington Oval — a match that saw Somerset dominate St George’s, who were five wickets away from an innings defeat, and retain the trophy.

An assertive batting display on day one set the tone with the old, Janeiro Tucker, and the new, Tre Manders, both scoring excellent centuries.

And it’s that mix of experience and youth that Edness, who wants to captain the side for the fourth time next year, thinks will stand the team in good stead for 2014 and beyond.

He told the Bermuda Sun: “We have a good nucleus, we can get a few more Cup Matches out of Janeiro, then we have myself, Jacobi (Robinson) and Stephen (Outerbridge) — 28, 29 and 30 — and then there’s quite a big drop to the likes of  Terryn Fray, early twenties, and Tre Manders, who is a teenager.

“If we can keep complacency out of the mix then I see no problem why we can’t keep winning.” 

A first victory at St George’s in 32 years would have been the icing on the cake for Somerset but the rain delays on day two in reality put paid to that. 

“It’s a bit of shame we couldn’t get the win,” said Edness, 29. 

“But we had the Cup and we could’ve sat back but we just said – let’s go for it. We tried and we didn’t quite do it but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.”

He added: “Tre’s innings (109) was very special. For an 18 year-old to score a century and show that level of maturity was amazing. At first we thought he was batting too cautiously but from about 30 runs up to 100 he showed everyone what he could do. 

“He’s just 18 – he’s got another 20 Cup Matches ahead of him.

“It definitely helped having Janeiro down the other end. Tre couldn’t help but feel confident when you have a guy like that with you. Everyone knows what Janeiro can do. He is a class act. To be honest he could have batted for
two days, he didn’t look like getting out.”

The one controversy during Cup Match was the behaviour of St George’s Treadwell Gibbons, who confronted the umpires and Somerset players after getting out in the second innings, with many now calling for disciplinary  action to be taken against the player. 

Edness said: “I don’t want to get into that. He’s a St George’s player.” n