Bess has now taken the wickets of Barker and Clarke – awful shots played by both but he has a five-for on debut, a great effort.
The ECB liason officers (who we used to call pitch inspectors) will take an interest in this one. There has been turn out there, as well as help for the seamers. We have seen 18 wickets go down and there are still 20 overs to go. But there has also been some crazy batting. Warwickshire are 110 for eight, 15 ahead.
More serene progress here than at Ciderabad (copyright @somersetbagpuss) where the ball looks like its turning square from 200 miles away, and Paul’s notepad must have more scribbles in it than those belonging to your average child that has gone back to school today. My eldest is beginning secondary education, as is one of James Whitaker’s children, and England’s national selector has been here at Headingley to witness Alex Lees’ hundred.
It is now worth 130, and has proved the cornerstone of Yorkshire’s 271 for three - at the current rate they look good value for maximum batting points. The Australian Jake Lehmann is also well set, into the 30s, for the fifth time in his six Yorkshire innings for Yorkshire.
We are watching a memorable debut match from Dominic Bess at Taunton. First he scored nine (ok, not that many, but more than most of Somerset’s specialist batsmen) and now he’s just taken three wickets for no runs in the space of six deliveries.
And he took the wickets of Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell with successive deliveries to put himself on a hat-trick. He dismissed Trott, who top-edged a sweep, with Marcus Trescothick running round from leg slip to take the simple catch. Then, next ball, Bell pushed the ball straight down the wicket via his front pad and Bess took a good return catch low to his left.
Sam Hain avoided the hat-trick but in his next over Bess bowled one that turned and lifted to catch the shoulder of Ian Westwood’s bat and Trescothick took the catch.
Somerset were very much back in the match when Jack Leach bowled Lamb, who was pushing forward. At tea Warwickshrie are 81 for five, still 14 for five.
I’ve just met John Jameson in the interval. “It will be over in two days,” said John. It might go to three – but who will win? Jameson was one of my favourite batsmen when I started watching cricket. A strong man, he could mishit for six – and that was before new bat technology.
Collingwood pouched a catch behind the stumps to end Gary Balance’s innings of 71, from a decent Barry McCarthy delivery as Yorkshire took tea at 223 for three.
The other wicket to fall was the out-of-sorts Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale, bowled around his legs by Graham Onions, leaving Alex Lees to pass 1000 Division One runs - doing so after a ricochet for four off the stumps from Jack Burnham’s throw - before reaching his third Championship hundred of the season.
Bit of an incident here at Headingley. Michael Richardson, only keeping wicket because Stuart Poynter was ruled out of the match through illness, has been forced off the field with what appears to be a dislocated finger. Paul Collingwood, ever the enthusiast, has taken over behind the stumps. Yorkshire 156 for one.
For a while here it seemed possible that Somerset would fail to reach their lowest ever score against Warwickshire – a paltry 50. They managed this twice, at Edgbaston in 1951 and again at Taunton in 2005.
They were 46 for seven here before keeper Ryan Davies saved their most crimson blushes by becoming, after Abell, only the second man to reach double figures.
They were 36 for five when Peter Trego was comprehensively bowled by Barker and three wickets had fallen for the same score when Roelof van der Merwe was caught in the slips by Clarke without scoring.
Lewis Gregory was caught behind off Clarke for four – 46 for seven – and Bess, making a difficult debut, fell to the same combo to make it 66 for eight When Davies was caught and bowled by Clarke it was 69 for nine and lunch was put on hold.
Somerset were bowled out for 95 in 30.1 overs when Jeetan Patel came on and with his first ball bowled Tim Groenewald. The ball turned sharply so maybe Somerset were right to play three spinners. But Barker, Clarke and Wright have bowled well in helpful conditions.
I arrived two minutes late for play after a three and a half hour drive here from Brighton. I’m glad I wasn’t any later. I would have been bang on time but for having to puff up the 71 one steps to the very impressive new-this-season press box in the Somerset Pavilion. The way Somerset are playing I half expect the pavilion to collapse too.
Not a lot doing for Durham’s pace bowlers in Leeds, and the sight of Paul Collingwood bowling himself after an hour really made the Yorkshire batsmen’s eyes light up. Particularly, Alex Lees, who sat on the back foot in anticipation of his gentle pace and mowed a six over deep midwicket.
Lees has progressed to 56, with Gary Ballance unbeaten on 44, and Yorkshire are 110 for one at lunch.
Middlesex, meanwhile, have three Nottinghamshire wickets at Trent Bridge, with Finn bagging two of them. Notts are 74 for three.
In case you missed it, here’s some news from Nottinghamshire:
Somerset have an early opportunity to regret their decision to bat first because they are 36 for four. Having been presented with Kermit-green pitch, the home team immediately decided to dispense with seamer Jim Allenby and bring in a third spinner, Dominic Bess. Bess is a 19-year-old off-spinning all-rounder from Devon. He has already played for England Under-19s. He played against Pakistan earlier this season but this is his championship debut.
For Warwickshire, Matthew Lamb is making his first-class debut, coming in for Varun Chopra, who is returning to Essex.
Somerset lost their first wicket when, on two, Marcus Trescothick didn’t get properly forward to a straight, pitched-up delivery from Chris Wright and was so obviously lbw that he didn’t even look at the umpire.
It was eight for two when the out of touch skipper Chris Rodgers got a good delivery from Keith Barker that left him and he was caught by Rikki Clarke at second slip. That became 28 for three when James Hildreth edged Barker to Ian Bell at third slip and Somerset lost their fourth when Tom Abell was strangled down the leg side.
The Warwickshire bowlers look up for this. And Somerset’s already remote chances of a first championship look more far-fetched than ever.
An early wicket has gone down here - Adam Lyth guiding a delivery from Graham Onions straight to gully in the fourth over - with Yorkshire 35 for one after three quarters of an hour.
Elsewhere, meanwhile, Nottinghamshire have announced that Peter Moores has been given greater power in his role at Trent Bridge. Although he signed a two-year contract to extend his coaching consultancy last autumn, another three-year one has superseded it.
From October 1, the former England coach will be in charge of all first-team affairs, making decisions on future signings as well as team selection - areas he has not been involved with in 2016. Mick Newell, the club’s director of cricket, will replicate the kind of role carried out by Martyn Moxon at Yorkshire, overseeing all levels.
“To be offered the chance to become head coach of a club like Notts, at a venue as special as Trent Bridge, is a terrific honour,” said Moores.
“Working with cricketers one-to-one for the last year has been an ideal way to get me back in to county cricket, and it means I already know this group of players very well, which will give me a head start in some ways.
“The passion for being a head coach again is there and the club has the ambition to be competing for trophies across all three formats of the game, so it’s a fantastic opportunity.”
Moores is likely to start his tailored role in Division Two, with Notts needing to win both their remaining Championship fixtures to stand any chance of avoiding the drop.
Just as in April, the trend in September appears to be for the visiting teams to take advantage of the County Championship’s toss rule and ask their hosts to bat.
That is the case both here at Headingley, where Paul Collingwood’s Durham will take to the field against history-chasers Yorkshire and down the M1 at Trent Bridge where Division One leaders Middlesex have asked bottom club Nottinghamshire to have first use of the Trent Bridge surface.
In terms of team news, Yorkshire remain without their England limited-overs contingent of Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid and David Willey. Meanwhile, Middlesex, four points better off than the team chasing a third consecutive title - to emulate the achievement of their 1960s predecessors - are boosted with the return to fitness of Steven Finn as well as the availability of Tim Murtagh following Ireland duty.
Elsewhere in the top flight, Hampshire have opted to bowl at the Oval against in-form Surrey and in the only bucking of the form this morning, Somerset have won the one toss and are batting against another of the mid-table teams Warwickshire at Taunton.
Here in Leeds, the pitch has a distinctive green tinge but the sun is out and the conditions are set nicely for batting. It could be the pivotal round of the Championship - both at the top and bottom.
In case you missed them yesterday, here are Gary Naylor’s weekly talking points:
Morning all,
Today we will be covering Yorkshire v Durham and Somerset v Warwickshire. Here are the week’s fixtures:
Division One
Nottinghamshire v Middlesex
Trent Bridge
Somerset v Warwickshire
County Ground, Taunton
Surrey v Hampshire
The Oval
Yorkshire v Durham
Headingley
Division Two
Glamorgan v Gloucestershire
The SSE SWALEC, Cardiff
Kent v Northamptonshire
County Cricket Ground, Beckenham
Leicestershire v Sussex
County Ground, Grace Road
