Goldsworthy shines for Somerset but Warwicks on top

Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Cooper Associates County Ground, Taunton (day one)

Somerset 208: Goldsworthy 90, T Rew 35; Webster 4-23, Gilchrist 2-31

Warwickshire 92-2: Hain 37*, Mousley 37*; Ball 1-10

Warwickshire (3 pts) trail Somerset (0 pts) by 116 runs with 8 wkts in hand

Match scorecard

Lewis Goldsworthy mustered a battling 90 to keep Somerset afloat on day one of the County Championship Division One match against Warwickshire at Taunton.

Goldsworthy hit 13 fours in a 184-ball knock in a below-par total of 208 as Beau Webster claimed 4-23 in eight overs.

Ethan Bamber, Nathan Gilchrist and Manav Suthar also weighed in with two wickets apiece as the home side were dismissed in 65 overs.

Warwickshire then consolidated their position in the final session as Sam Hain (37*) and Dan Mousley (37*) staged an unbroken third-wicket stand of 78 to leave the visitors on 92-2 at stumps, trailing by 116.

Somerset won the toss and elected to bat on a green-tinged pitch and saw their top-order batting fatally undermined by the new ball.

Bamber struck twice in three balls in the third over, angling a delivery into Josh Thomas, who edged behind to Alex Davies, and then found the outside edge to have Tom Kohler-Cadmore held by Rob Yates at second slip.

When Jordan Hermann flashed hard at a ball outside off stump from Gilchrist and was pouched by Webster at third slip, Somerset were 21-3, having lost their top three in the space of five deliveries.

Charged with the task of rebuilding, Goldsworthy and Thomas Rew saw off the new-ball threat of Bamber and Gilchrist before profiting from change bowlers Ed Barnard and Jordan Thompson to lead a partial recovery.

Making only his third Championship appearance, teenager Rew marked the advent of Suthar by hoisting his slow left-arm for six over long-on as the balance of power shifted in favour of the fourth-wicket pair.

Their partnership was worth 65 when Rew blotted his copybook, shouldering arms to a straight one from Webster and falling lbw for 35.

Warming to his task, Webster then extracted additional lift to find the edge, Archie Vaughan feathering a catch to first slip as lunch was taken with Somerset precariously-positioned at 94-5.

The hosts continued to lose wickets following the resumption, Webster persuading stand-in captain Craig Overton to open the face and slice straight to Zen Malik at point, and then bowling around the wicket to Jack Leach, who nicked behind with the score on 97-7.

Josh Shaw stood up with a well-crafted 28 in a resilient stand of 55 with Goldsworthy as the eighth-wicket pair frustrated Warwickshire's attempts to run through the tail.

By the time Shaw gave Suthar the charge and succumbed to a fine catch by Hain on the long-on boundary, the home side had gone a long way towards saving face.

Goldsworthy lived a charmed existence outside off stump, but his commitment to the cause saw him chisel an extremely valuable half-century from 137 balls.

Accelerating as wickets fell at the other end, the 25-year-old Cornishman batted with intelligence to retain the strike as he closed in on three figures.

But Migael Pretorius was undone by a slower ball, offering a return catch to Suthar, and Goldsworthy was last man out, skying a ball from Gilchrist to Hain at backward point to fall 10 runs short of a deserved hundred.

Somerset made early in-roads with the new ball, Jake Ball having Davies held at first slip and Overton pouching a return catch to remove Yates and reduce Warwickshire to 14-2.

Adopting a low-risk approach, Hain and Rousley batted with discipline to shut out Somerset's bowlers thereafter, going to a 50 partnership from 87 balls.

Report by ECB Reporters' Network, supported by Rothesay.