Durham gain first day honours at Taunton

Nick Speak produced a captain's innings of concentration and careful shot selection to give Durham the first day honours at Taunton.

Having won the toss and chosen to take first use of a typically batsman-friendly pitch at the County Ground, Speak found himself walking out at 88-3, with Somerset threatening to get on top.

By the time he was out in the final session the scoreboard read a healthy 287-6 and an unbroken stand between Andy Pratt and John Wood took it to 324-6 by the close.

Speak faced 211 deliveries for his top score of 78, hitting 7 fours, but building his innings mainly on watchful defence.

He shared stands of 128 with Paul Collingwood and 65 with Jimmy Daley during a day of attrition, which saw Somerset's below-strength attack struggling to find any penetration.

Jon Lewis and Michael Gough had given Durham a solid start with an opening stand of 52 before Lewis was well held low at second slip by Parsons off Graham Rose for 31.

The tall Gough produced some sweetly-timed offside strokes in his 33, but fell to a poor shot, caught behind attempting to cut a wide ball from Jamie Grove. When Simon Katich was pinned lbw by Grove trying to force a straight full-length ball through mid-wicket Somerset may have sensed a collapse.

But Speak dropped anchor, while Collingwood punished anything loose, hitting 11 fours in reaching his half-century off 71 balls.

Collingwood was never as fluent from then on, but had battled his way to 74 when getting the one ball of the day that turned appreciably off a good line and length. He was caught by Rose at slip off left-armer Ian Blackwell.

It was a solitary success for the two Somerset spinners. Blackwell and Adrian Pierson shared 36 overs, bowling tidily enough, but rarely troubling the batsmen.

Their seam bowling colleagues also had to work hard while getting precious little encouragement from the pitch

At 281-4, Durham looked set to end the day in an even more commanding position. But then Daley and Speak fell in quick succession to avoidable dismissals.

Daley had made a season's best 34 when run-out by Keith Parsons from mid-off answering Speak's call for a quick single. The throw hit the stumps without the assistance of wicketkeeper Rob Turner, with Daley inches short of his ground.

It was a breakthrough Somerset's bowlers, lacking Andy Caddick on Test Match duty and Peter Trego with England Under-19s, did not look like making.

Soon Speak had hooked Grove's first delivery with the second new ball for four. But he departed trying to repeat the shot, caught off a top edge by Pierson at third-man.

The Durham skipper had reached his fourth half century of the season off 137 balls, with only 3 boundaries. He was prepared to await the bad ball, which came less often after tea when Pierson and Blackwell bowled in tandem.

Pratt and Wood took advantage of some tired bowling to add 43 in quick time after the Durham innings looked to be getting bogged down and the visitors will be looking for maximum batting points on day two.