County Championship: Burgess & Barnard help Bears rally at Taunton

Michael Burgess led a determined Warwickshire fightback on the opening day of their County Championship Division One match with Somerset at Taunton.

Going in at number eight, the 29-year-old wicketkeeper made an unbeaten 126 to build on the good work of Ed Barnard (92) and skipper Will Rhodes (63) after their side had slumped to 40-4.

England’s Chris Woakes contributed 39 to an eighth-wicket stand of 110 as the Bears closed on 373-8.

Josh Davey made the first breakthrough when Bears skipper Alex Davies edged a defensive push to Tom Abell at first slip before fit-again Rob Yates nicked a lifter from Migael Pretorius to second slip.

Pretorius struck again in his next over with an excellent delivery that clipped the top of Sam Hain’s off stump for a fifth-ball duck, then Dan Mousley edged an attempted leg-side shot to give Kasey Aldridge another slip catch.

But Rhodes and Barnard put on 104 before Somerset struck two rapid blows.

Jack Leach, dropped from England’s Test squad but preferred here to Shoaib Bashir as the only specialist spinner, tempted Rhodes into an ugly mishit to Bears old boy Andy Umeed at mid-on before in-form Jacob Bethell edged Craig Overton to wicketkeeper James Rew.

After putting on 99 with Burgess, Barnard fell unexpectedly, bowled attempting to cut a slightly quicker Leach delivery.

As the second new ball approached, Burgess launched Leach for two sixes over long-on, before Woakes then brought up the 300 with a glorious cover-driven four off Overton and Burgess went to three figures from 146 balls.

Woakes suffered a couple of painful blows, one to his right hand, but the England all-rounder battled bravely through until chipping a catch to Umeed to give Pretorius his fourth wicket.