THE prospect of Somerset winning the County Championship for the first time in their 151 year history took another step closer to becoming a reality after the Cidermen beat Leicestershire by 377 runs inside three days.

With just two games remaining this victory put Somerset top of the table four points clear of reigning champions Nottinghamshire, who in turn are one ahead of Warwickshire, the other team involved in what has turned out to be a three horse race.

After being put into bat at Grace Road the visitors were given an excellent start by Josh Thomas and Tom Lammonby who put on 181 together before the latter was out for 74 which he scored off 95 balls with 11 fours.

Thomas was joined by Archie Vaughan and together the young pair saw the total onto 222 when both perished; Vaughan was LBW to former Somerset pacemen Nathan Gilchrist for 21. Thomas fell next over, bowled by Ben Mike for 100, his second in the championship which came from 154 deliveries and contained 15 fours.

The ever reliable James Rew then made 61, while Henry Nicholls hit 26 and Lewis Gregory 27 before Somerset were all out for 363 in 75.4 overs.

When the home team replied Gregory accounted for both openers before Craig Overton and Jake Ball both claimed three wickets apiece as Leicestershire were dismissed for 157.

Batting for a second time Somerset once again were given a good start by their openers who took the total onto 113 before Thomas was out for 55. Lammonby went onto score 69 after which Nicholls and Tom Abell shared a fourth wicket partnership 119 when Abell fell for 58.

Nicholls remained at the crease until Somerset declared on 316 for 5 by which time the New Zealander was unbeaten on 100 which he scored from 112 balls with 9 fours and four 6s.

Chasing an unlikely target of 523 for victory the Somerset bowlers quickly reduced their opponents to 65 for 6, after which Jack leach cleaned up the tail and Leicestershire were eventually all out for 145 in 45.1 overs.

Overton, who is enjoying his best ever season, ended with the impressive figures of 4 for 33 while Leach finished with 3 for 30 and Gregory 2 for 10.

Somerset play their penultimate championship match of the season away against Yorkshire (start Tuesday 15th September at Headingley) and round off their season when they host Surrey starting on Wednesday 24th September at 10.30am.

After the match, Overton said: “It’s been a really good all-round team performance. We spoke about that opening partnership of 180, which gave us that stronghold to be able to go from there.

“We’ve got a bit of momentum going into these last games but I think we’ve had momentum the whole year really; we’ve played a lot of good cricket and with the two games that we lost, we probably should have won them. Now it’s just finishing off the season the way we’ve played all year but we know it’s going to be hard work.

“We’re against teams in the bottom half of the table, but they’re still very good sides and there’s no easy win, so we know we’re going to have to turn up and put in a performance.”