'The match was awesome tonight' says Shine as Somerset take the points in Cardiff

Somerset took their first step towards the next stage of the new Twenty20 Cup competition when they beat Glamorgan in Cardiff this evening to earn themselves two valuable points.

In a high scoring game the Welshmen won the toss and batting first amassed 193 for 7 from their twenty overs, thanks to top scorer David Hemp who made an unbeaten 49 and an opening stand of 53 between Robert Croft (28) and seasoned campaigner Matthew Maynard who made 39.

The Somerset openers Carl Gazzard and Jamie Cox led the chase and brought up the Cidermen's fifty in the fourth over, before with the score on 61 Gazzard was out for 26.

Former skipper Cox continued his run of good form before he was out for 53. Ian Blackwell weighed in with a valuable 28 before Keith Parsons and Keith Dutch who came together with the score on 135 for 3 stayed together to see their side home at the end of the eighteenth over to a seven wicket victory.

The former Middlesex man who has been good one day form of late ended unbeaten on 49, which he scored from 32 balls and that included eight fours whilst Parsons remained unbeaten on 28.

After the match Somerset coach Kevin Shine told me: "This really was an excellent win given the conditions that the game was played in. Chasing their total, which I think could be the highest in the competition so far , Jamie Cox and Carl Gazzard went bananas at the start and we had 80 odd on the board after 4.4 overs. But this wasn't slogging this was an innings full of cricket shots."

"The match was awesome tonight and the lads are in good humour and feeling very positive after a win like this, especially as we played in terrible conditions with driving rain and strong winds that made the ball like a bar of soap for both teams. Both teams did well, but we got the victory we wanted," he concluded.