Derbyshire 316 & 413-8 dec Somerset 151 & 498: Derbyshire foil record attempt and end barren home run
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Your support makes all the difference.Derbyshire finally ended a barren home run in the Championship stretching back four years, but only after a brilliant, unbeaten career-best 260 from Cameron White gave them a real scare.
The Australian batted for just over six hours to take Somerset to within 81 runs of a target of 579 before Charl Willoughby was run out trying to give White the strike. That gave Derbyshire an 80-run victory, their first Championship win at Derby since June 1, 2002 which was greeted by wild celebrations and champagne spraying in front of the dressing-room.
But White and Simon Francis had raised Somerset's hopes of setting a world record for the highest fourth-innings score with an eighth-wicket stand of 113 in 23 overs. They carried Somerset to 462, 117 from their target, when Ian Hunter ran in from the Grandstand End to bowl Francis in the sixth over with the new ball.
But White still threatened to spoil Derbyshire's party and another 17 runs were added before Andy Caddick pulled Steffan Jones to deep fine leg, where Hunter took a good catch on the run. White went for his shots, reaching 250, and keeping the strike to take his side to 498 until Willoughby was beaten by a direct hit at the bowler's end from Ant Botha at short midwicket.
The Victorian, who is 23 next week, had faced 246 balls and hit three sixes and 40 fours in a monumental innings that was his last in the Championship before he returns home for an operation on his left wrist.
The Derbyshire captain, Graeme Welch, who bowled through the pain of a strained Achilles tendon, said: "I wasn't going to miss this for the world. If we were going to win, I didn't want to be on the sidelines."
Welch, along with Steve Stubbings and Michael Di Venuto, played in Derbyshire's last Championship home win, against Glamorgan 33 games ago. "It seems that long ago I can't remember," he said. "It's been embarrassing not winning at home for the last four years. We needed to get the monkey off our backs."
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