After 21 wickets fell on the first day of the County Championship match up between Somerset and Lancashire the teams found themselves going into the night time break separated by just six runs.
Lancashire were toppled first as they were bowled out for just 140 runs, courtesy of four wickets a piece from Craig Overton and Lewis Gregory, before Somerset themselves were bowled out for a total of 146 on the same day.
The result leaves Lancashire leading by just 10 runs overnight.
After the day's play Somerset head coach Jason Kerr said: “I’m certainly not happy at this stage. Twenty-one wickets in the day suggests there’s something happening with the surface but to be 58 for one gave us an opportunity to take the game forward and we’ve missed that opportunity.
“I thought Lancashire bowled well on that surface but you need to find a way to absorb pressure and then put it back on the opposition and we didn’t do that. You could argue there were a couple of soft dismissals in there as well and when have an opportunity, you need to be far more ruthless.
“We weren’t sure how the surface was going to play. It looked better than it played but I thought Lewis was exceptional. He led from the front and bowled the lengths you need to on that surface. We had an opportunity to bat past them and we haven’t taken it.
“Taking Keaton Jennings’ wicket in the second innings was huge. He normally scores heavily against Somerset and I think the surface will get better tomorrow as it dries out.
Lancashire all-rounder, George Balderson, said: “It was an interesting day that I don’t think any of us really expected. There was a bit more grass on the pitch, we wanted that. We know we want to get a result this week.
“It’s pretty slow but it’s not an impossible challenge to score runs. So when you lose the toss you have to front up as a batting unit and try and get a score and we didn’t quite do that.
“I thought they bowled very nicely and made it hard work for us. We didn’t think we’d necessarily bowl them out for parity, but we knew we had the ability and if we held to our areas and bowled well we could keep them to maybe 160-170 it would give us a chance in the third innings.
“The ball started doing a bit (when they were 58-1). The roller had a bit of an impact. It deadened it for the first 15 overs and as it started to wear off it felt like the ball started nipping around again.
“And I think we bowled better as well. We’re in a position where we can still win the game and that’s the important thing. We need to come out tomorrow and bat well.
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