Will Smeed had parked red-ball cricket back in 2022. This morning at Chelmsford, a damaged thumb changed everything.
Somerset lost Tom Kohler-Cadmore eight overs into the County Championship match against Essex. Fielding at first slip, he clung on to Wiaan Mulder off Jake Ball, the ball clipping his left thumb before settling safely in his right hand. Off he went for treatment and, by 2.30 pm, match referee James Whitaker had signed off a concussion-style replacement – hand injuries fall under the same regulation these days.
Cue Smeed. The 24-year-old was 180-odd not out for the second XI in Abergavenny when the phone rang. By the time he finished on 209* (having already made 148 in the first dig), grabbed his kit and set off across the Severn, the game he was meant to bolster had started sprinting away.
Somerset’s quicks, pleased with an unchanged Dukes ball, rolled Essex for 149 in 51 overs. Craig Overton found enough nibble, Ball backed him up, and Essex never quite settled. Handy, except the visitors then slumped to 16 for 3 themselves. Jack Leach – yes, the left-arm spinner – was bumped up to open, a throwback to that 92 against Ireland in 2019. He lasted 11 balls before Jamie Porter rattled his off stump. Sam Cook nicked off Tom Lammonby and young Joshua Thomas in successive overs. All the while Smeed’s sat-nav insisted on slower traffic on the M5.
Whether he’d have any partners left became a live question. Archie Vaughan, on duty as spare batter, might have been the simpler choice, yet Somerset wanted Smeed’s form – and, perhaps, the story. No shame in that. He is, after all, the bloke who belted the first men’s century in The Hundred for Birmingham Phoenix, then stunned most people by shelving first-class cricket at 21 so he could chase white-ball gigs. Back then he called it a “no-brainer”. These days he admits the itch never fully went away. A hamstring injury last summer kept him at Taunton for rehab, he drifted into the 2nd XI Championship, enjoyed the rhythm of four-day cricket, and here we are.
Three hand-injury substitutes in five Championship days feels like a trend. Tom Westley, Essex’s captain, broke a finger against Hampshire and handed over to teenager Noah Thain. Yorkshire’s Jonny Bairstow copped one on the thumb while keeping, with Will Luxton stepping in. Now Kohler-Cadmore joins the list. Gloves and extra tape only do so much in early April when the ball is still rock-hard.
What happens next for Smeed is anyone’s guess. Somerset would like a steady innings more than a headline; Smeed himself has not faced a red-ball bowler in anger since 2022. Timing the white Kookaburra is one thing, negotiating Cook, Porter and that first-class length is another. Yet confidence travels: 357 runs in two days for the seconds is more than warm-up.
Essex, meanwhile, will feel they let an opportunity slip. Mulder, new to the county, looked fluent before falling, and only Matt Critchley’s 34 put up much resistance. Their attack, so often metronomic at home, still has Somerset wobbling, so a low-scoring scrap remains likely.
Somerset coach Jason Kerr, talking to the local stream during the change-over, kept it simple: “We’ve backed Will because he’s in serious nick. The rules allow it, Tom can’t grip a bat, so why not?” Fair enough. The laws introduced in 2019 were designed with concussion in mind but have proved equally useful for broken digits.
As the sun dipped behind the Hayes Close end, one truth lingered: few players retire at 21, fewer still unretire at 24, and almost none do it mid-innings two hundred miles away. The next chapter starts as soon as Smeed finds a parking spot.
