Royal London One-Day Cup

Sussex 341-7 beat Somerset 266 by 75 runs

SOMERSET'S winning start to the Royal London One-Day Cup was brought to an end by Sussex in Taunton.

Luke Wright struck 105 as the visitors racked up 341-7 and, though James Hildreth (86) was again in fine form for the hosts, Somerset fell 75 runs short in reply.

Having won the toss and opted to bat, Sussex were immediately into their stride as Wright and Luke Wells made a positive start.

Peter Trego, captaining the side in the absence of the injured Tom Abell (hand), opened the bowling alongside Craig Overton and it was the latter who struck first, clean bowling Wells (11) with the score on 31.

Harry Finch joined Wright and the pair added 107 for the second wicket - Jamie Overton taking 0-24 fromt three overs in his first appearance of the season - before Finch became the first of Max Waller's three victims, trapped lbw on the back foot attempting a flick through mid-wicket.

Ben Brown (8) was then caught behind off Groenewald to leave Sussex 156-3, and Wright brought up an excellent century before picking out Tom Banton on the mid-wicket boundary from the bowling of Waller to depart for 105.

Valuable middle-order contributions from Laurie Evans (43), Michael Burgess (56) and David Wiese (58*) pushed Sussex to 341-7 from their 50 overs, with Groenewald (3-63) and Waller (3-52) the pick of the Somerset attack.

Somerset slipped to 24-2 in reply as Johann Myburgh (9) and Peter Trego (6) fell early, but Steve Davies was playing some superb shots at the other end on his way to a half-century, which came with a touch of fortune as he was dropped twice.

His luck ran out on 56 and Tom Banton's subsequent departure for two left Somerset 101-4.

James Hildreth (86) and Matt Renshaw (55) kept them in the hunt but, once they had gone, the end came quickly as Somerset's tail offered little resistance.

Speaking afterwards, Somerset director of cricket Andy Hurry said: "We have to give credit to Sussex and Luke Wright, who made a really good hundred.

"At our best we are better than that and we have lessons to learn.

"We backed ourselves to chase 340 - it was probably a 370 or 380 wicket - bu they came at us hard with the ball and made it tough for us. We needed someone to kick on and the rest to build around that.

"Matt Renshaw has not done his chances of staying in the team any harm and we are optimistic Tom Abell will be back for Friday - he hurt his finger fielding against Glamorgan and couldn't hold the bat comfortably doing throwdowns this morning, so we had to make a late decision."

"Josh Davey has a re-occurence of the thigh injury he sustained earlier in the season but Lewis Gregory is not injured - we have to manage his workload carefully and he has bowled a lot of overs already this season."

Contract negotiations with Gregory, meanwhile, remain ongoing.