WELL bowled mate', 'Lovely bowling', 'Wooaaaar, he's going nowhere matey, great bowling'.

The ground echoes to the sound of chivvying voices.

Fielders shout and applaud. Seagulls scatter.

What has happened? Which momentous feat has the bowler perpetrated to merit such acclaim?

Has he delivered a ‘Gatting-ball’? Ripped out the middle stump, perhaps? Completed a hat-trick? Taken the last wicket in an all-ten?

No, none of those.

He had bowled a straight ball. Which was met by the middle of the bat.

A plain, old, regular dot-ball which disconcerted the batsman not one jot. Somerset spinner Jack Leach sent it down and Warwickshire batsman Laurie Evans defended it. A forgettable iota in the long, rich history of cricket.

Yet to judge by the reaction of Leach’s team-mates at Taunton two weeks ago, the delivery was something pretty amazing, triggering the sort of reaction that was warranted, perhaps, by Jim Laker’s seizing of his 19th wicket in the match for England against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 1956.

Laker’s feat was, in fact, greeted by the most restrained and dignified of celebrations. A couple of firm handshakes, a gentle hitching up of the trousers and a polite but sincere ‘well done sir.’

It’s all a bit different now, as spectators at the Bears’ recent visit to Taunton discovered.

County cricket has evolved in many ways since Laker wheeled away for Surrey, Essex and England. And many of those changes are welcome – the one-day game, names on shirts, pink wheelbarrows.

But some changes have polluted rather than enhanced the sport. And the tide of verbal ‘encouragement’ from some fielding sides (Somerset are certainly not the only perpetrators) to their bowlers emphatically falls into that category.

If I was a county cricketer (and, remember, I should be – Warwickshire had their chance in 1980 when I attended trials at Edgbaston but Derief Taylor, a man of renowned good judgment, had a rare off-day and deemed my leg-spin unworthy of further attention.

Although, now I come to think about it, I have never actually heard back from the county so have not actually had a rejection so it’s possible that Mr Taylor did, in fact, want me back and wrote a reply, perhaps also with the offer of a contract, but the letter went astray in the post.

Sometimes things get delayed in the mail don’t they? Or perhaps the letter is even still at Edgbaston but just as the lady was putting it in the post-tray 33 years ago she was distracted and then somebody walked past and brushed against the envelope and it fell under a cupboard where it remains to this day.

I’ll have to ask Colin Povey just to check under his cupboards – you never know...)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes.

If I was a county cricketer, in the team principally for my bowling skills, I would feel patronised, if not donwright insulted, to receive a round of adulation every time I manage to get the sphere up the other end.

If, as a spin-bowler, like Leach and myself, one delivers a ‘Gatting ball’ (my stock delivery, by the way) then one expects some appreciation from one’s colleagues.

But the simple act of purveying the orb 22 yards in itself, if at the conclusion of those yards it passes harmless outside off-stump or is pinged crisply to cover by the batsman, hardly merits the ocean of fatuous and meaningless acclaim afforded to it by the chaps of Somerset, with Craig Kieswetter and Marcus Trescothick to the fore, the other week.

The idea, I assume, is to motivate the players to the highest possible level. To ensure the bowler knows he is supported at all times and to drive him on to new levels of endeavour.

That is the strategy – if you can call such an exhibition of championship-cricket-meets-chimps’-tea-party a strategy.

It was somewhat ironic, then, that all the hours of effort and energy which Somerset’s players devoted towards building a dominant position in the game against Warwickshire were ultimately undone largely by two huge strategic clangers.

Yes, the Bears defied superbly on the last day and for last pair Rikki Clarke and Oliver Hannon-Dalby to survive the last hour with a pulled hamstring and broken arm respectively showed great pluck. But Warwickshire clambered up a lifeline which they should never have been offered.

Having batted very poorly first time round to be rattled out for 158, the last thing the Bears wanted to do was go straight back in again.

Lo and behold, Somerset spared them by declining to enforce the follow on. And if that move halted the home side’s momentum, they compounded the error by batting on – and on and on – to set Warwickshire a victory target of 515.

Never mind all that empty waffle from the captain to his bowlers, the fact that he did not deem, say, a mere 450, enough to defend was not exactly a huge vote of confidence in them.

Perhaps they’d be better off turning down the volume and thinking a bit more.

Now... time to call Edgbaston. Let’s just see if there’s anything under those cupboards...