Normality returned to Taunton after all that frenetic activity on the first day. This was more familiar early-season fare with rusty bowlers, missed opportunities and annoying April showers, all played out in front of hardy spectators eager to find a haven from a chill breeze. By the end Middlesex were 306 for seven.
Two of their number almost hit hundreds. Nick Gubbins made 92 and their temporary captain, Adam Voges, who will soon be joining the Australian Test squad, 98. Both must wonder how they failed to reach three figures, a landmark that would have meant a lot to Gubbins in particular since has yet to manage that in first-class cricket. On this evidence he should not have to wait for too long.
Meanwhile, Voges purred along effortlessly as he continued the richest vein of form of his life. He was prolific for West Australia throughout the winter. If he was summoned into the Australian Test team in the coming months he would become something of a rarity, a 35-year-old debutant. But the Aussies do not worry so much about birth certificates nowadays.
Gubbins is only 21 and arrives in the Middlesex side via a well-trodden route. Like Andrew Strauss, Ben Hutton, Jamie Dalrymple before him he was at Radley College. He is a well-organised left-hander, who looks as if he might have watched a fair bit of Strauss in his youth. Now that he has finished at university he can concentrate on his cricket and his catching.
Gubbins outshone more senior opening batsmen recently enlisted and rejected by England. Sam Robson departed to the second ball of the day, caught at second slip by Marcus Trescothick off Lewis Gregory. Next came Nick Compton, returning to his county home for the last five years.
Compton started impressively as if in vintage form. He had hit five crisp boundaries when he was caught behind off Gregory.
He stood there, statuesque and disbelieving for rather a long time, before heading off.
Thereafter Gubbins and Voges added 139 with remarkably few alarms. A break for rain may have been welcomed by a lacklustre Somerset attack. After the restart Jamie Overton delivered a hostile little spell during which Gubbins edged to Trescothick.
Then Gregory and Overton intervened again. The former snared Voges lbw and soon after he accepted a return catch from Neil Dexter. Then Overton clean bowled John Simpson and Olly Rayner in the penultimate over. Both these young bowlers have potential, though more recently Gregory has been the one to catch the eye. He now has nine Championship wickets from 49 overs this season and he has bowled one maiden, which gives an idea of how he is bowling. There is an exciting potency there but also an exasperating inconsistency. But he did manage four of the seven wickets that a spluttering Somerset side managed in the day.
There is some talk that Gregory might be included in England’s one-day squad for the match against Ireland in Dublin on 8 May even though most of his successes so far in the county game have come with a red ball rather than a white one.
