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Josh impresses on maiden Championship start
Josh Thomas had a full debut to remember as he helped Somerset to an overnight score of 339 for six on the opening day of this Rothesay County Championship match against Essex at the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford.
The 20-year-old, who came on as a concussion substitute for Tom Abell against Hampshire last week, made the most of his maiden First Class start for the Club by scoring an impressive 86 runs and sharing a second wicket stand of 121 with Tom Lammonby.
It was a fine innings from the Somerset debutant, who opened the batting and showed a good range of stroke play as he acquired his runs from 127 deliveries, claiming 14 fours and a six during his 163 minute innings.
James Rew also caught the eye again, recording his eighth score of 50-plus this season, and although not as outwardly flamboyant as Thomas he eked out a 90-run partnership in 29 overs with Lewis Goldsworthy for the fifth wicket. Jamie Porter and Doug Bracewell extracted liveliness and bounce from a green-tinged wicket that had encouraged Somerset to bat after winning the toss. Porter finished the day with 3-45 from 21 overs.
Otherwise, it was an exasperating day for Essex, who still need a smattering of points to be certain of playing Division One cricket next season.
Thomas lost his more experienced opening partner, Archie Vaughan, early on when the 19-year-old mistimed a drive off Porter and edged to third slip.
The loss did not deter Thomas. He had got off the mark to his first ball faced, turning Bracewell off his hip for two, and then twice drove the New Zealander impressively straight for boundaries. It set the tone for his innings. An eighth four, hammered through the covers from Charlie Bennett’s own first ball in first-class cricket, brought up Somerset’s fifty, of which the dominant Thomas had contributed 41.
Bennett, who was Essex’s top wicket-taker in the Metro Bank Cup, frequently strayed down legside to the left-hander, but when he bowled a straighter delivery, Thomas pulled it effortlessly for six. Thomas’s half-century came from just 51 balls when he turned a ninth boundary down to third man. However, he was given a life on 55 when dropped at first slip by Dean Elgar off Noah Thain.
The let-off seemed to inhibit Thomas and his rate of scoring dipped noticeably once he had passed that milestone, though he still made nearly two-thirds of the first hundred in the stand with Lammonby. The pair had been together for 34 overs when Porter’s pace beat the outside of Thomas’s bat and thudded into his off-stump.
Lammonby made 47 before he was lbw to one from Bennett that looked as if it might have missed leg-stump.
Tom Kohler-Cadmore lasted just eight balls before he tried to charge Bracewell and ended up nicking to substitute wicketkeeper Simon Fernandes, fielding post-lunch in place of Michael Pepper, who required treatment to an injured thumb.
Rew and Goldsworthy picked up Thomas’s good work, piecing together a watchful partnership during which Rew reached his own half-century from 89 balls. His sixth boundary, through the covers off Matt Critchley, gave Somerset their first batting point. But with the new-ball just eight deliveries old Bracewell had Rew caught behind.
With the shine still on the ball, Porter had a third victim when Kasey Aldridge edged a misdrive low to Fernandes. But Goldsworthy, operating below the radar, reached a second half-century in three innings this season while putting on fifty for the seventh wicket with Craig Overton.
