County Championship Division One: Poysden dents Middlesex title bid
Wednesday 31 August 2016 21:00, UK
Warwickshire leg-spinner Josh Poysden took a maiden first-class five-for to help bowl out Specsavers County Championship table-toppers Middlesex for 242 on day one at Edgbaston.
Poysden returned figures of 5-53, taking the key wickets of Dawid Malan (57) and Stevie Eskinazi (49) after Middlesex had started strongly, reaching 100 for the loss of just two wickets.
Their final five wickets fell for just 52 runs though - Chris Wright also impressing with 4-41 - before Warwickshire negotiated the final two overs of play, finishing on one without loss.
Yorkshire - Middlesex's closest challengers for the title - also struggled on day one against Hampshire at The Ageas Bowl, closing on 275-9.
Jake Lehmann (58) - Australia coach Darren Lehmann's son - struck his first fifty for the county in his third game, while Tim Bresnan (56) also hit a half century.
But Gareth Berg removed both on his way to impressive figures of 5-54 from his 23 overs to see Hampshire just edge proceedings on the opening day.
Tom Abell hit 135 for Somerset on day one against Lancashire at Old Trafford as the visitors amassed 339-7.
Abell shared in a 134-run opening stand with Marcus Trescothick (60), while skipper Chris Rogers also weighed in with 47.
Somerset suffered a mini-collapse of 6-60 later in the day - Tom Bailey taking 4-53 - but Peter Trego smashed an unbeaten 49 off 40 balls to put the visitors back in the ascendancy.
Harry Gurney took 6-61 to help boost bottom-of-the-table Nottinghamshire's hopes of avoiding relegation as they bowled Durham out for 244 on day one at Emirates Riverside before closing on 129-2.
Durham got off to a strong enough start, with opener Mark Stoneman hitting 49 to see them to 115-1 before he was one of four wickets to fall in three overs - three of them to Gurney.
The hosts never recovered, and though they reduced Nottinghamshire to 16-2 early in their reply, Jake Libby (51no) and Michael Lumb (68no) both hit half centuries in an unbroken 113-run stand to see the visitors safely through to stumps without further loss.
