Tuesday 26 May 2015 08:10, UK
James Hildreth moved towards 1,000 first-class runs for the summer with a superb 82 on the second day of Somerset's match against Yorkshire at Taunton.
After Yorkshire's Tim Bresnan scored his first Championship century for eight years, Hildreth batted excellently on a day that saw more than 400 runs scored for the loss of just six wickets. Hildreth took his total to 915 for the season, and needs 85 in the second innings to emulate Graeme Hick, the last man to score 1,000 runs before the end of May, back in 1988.
The morning session belonged to Bresnan, who reached three figures for the fourth time in his career as Yorkshire were bowled out for 438.
Resuming overnight on 345-8, Bresnan and Steve Patterson found the boundary with relative ease before the former reached three figures, off 136 balls. He struck 12 fours and one six.
Somerset finished the day 129 runs behind with six wickets still intact and the game delicately poised.
Abell said: "It's always great to get a bit of time out in the middle and I have felt a little bit short of runs recently. It's also nice to get a few partnerships going at the top of the order and personally, I was really helped by the way others played around me.
"It gave me the chance to establish myself and I found it a really good challenge against some really good bowlers.”
Durham’s Scott Borthwick struck a century which halted a Worcestershire charge on a wicket-scattered second day at New Road.
Borthwick made 103 and Graham Onions was unbeaten on 36, his highest championship score in three years, as the north-east county were dismissed for 198 in bowler-friendly conditions. Graham Onions, Chris Rushworth and John Hastings - who took three wickets - then combined to reduce the hosts to 65-6 in their second innings, a lead of 190.
Borthwick's innings, always resolute and frequently exhilarating, was perhaps the most unexpected and most rewarding of his six championship centuries since he became a top-order batsman two years ago.
When Onions went to the crease some 40 minutes after lunch, Durham had lost nine wickets on the day for the addition of 89 after a harrowing experience against Worcestershire's impressive seam trio of Joe Leach, Charlie Morris and Jack Shantry.
Leach claimed three wickets in 30 balls, notably when an lbw decision scuppered Paul Collingwood's move up the order, and the momentum was such that Durham could hardly find a run other than those that Borthwick chiselled from a desperate situation.
Calum MacLeod was last out before lunch, an inside edge finding short leg via the thigh pad, and the afternoon session began with five slips posted for Shantry. Chances duly flew to third and fourth in the line, and then first slip was called on when Chris Rushworth was ninth out, a fourth wicket for Leach.
At that point Durham were 220 adrift and perhaps only those with memories of Onions' international career - and his part in saving two Test matches in South Africa - may have dared to consider that they could muster 174 to ensure that Worcestershire would bat again, but it was not to be.
The bowlers dominated once again at Hove to leave it all to play between Sussex and Warwickshire.
Sussex bowler Matt Hobden took 4-43 in a telling 10-over burst before Rikki Clarke led Warwickshire's fightback with an unbeaten 32 on the second day.
Bad light stopped play after an over of the final session with Warwickshire 180 for seven, a lead of 169, and even though the floodlights were in use it did not improve sufficiently to allow a resumption.
With 27 wickets falling in five sessions, the surface has unsurprisingly come under extra scrutiny. Umpires Michael Gough and Russell Evans have already marked it 'below average' and if they downgrade that assessment to 'poor' it will be reported to the England and Wales Cricket Board by Cricket Liaison
Officer Tony Pigott once he has consulted both captains, coaches, umpires and the groundsman Andy Mackay.
"A points deduction is an option for the disciplinary committee," said Pigott.
