JACK LEANING’S second century of the season led defending champions Yorkshire to 343-8 on the first day of the LV= County Championship Division One match against Somerset at Taunton.
After being asked to bat by Somerset captain Marcus Trescothick, Yorkshire were indebted to a fine innings from 21-year-old Leaning, who struck 18 fours in his 243-ball innings before being bowled by Peter Trego in the penultimate over of the day.
Jonny Bairstow helped Leaning put on 93 for the third wicket before his fluent innings of 50, from 59 balls, ended with a slip catch by Trescothick off Craig Overton, while Tim Bresnan (54 not out) also gave the Yorkshire Academy product excellent support in a seventh-wicket stand that scored 117 runs.
Trego finished as Somerset’s most successful bowler with three wickets, but Yorkshire will feel they had the better of an interesting, and at times attritional, day’s play.
Trescothick’s decision to insert Yorkshire in overcast conditions brought little early reward as openers Alex Lees and Will Rhodes were largely untroubled in a stand of 55 in 13 overs.
Lees struck six boundaries, mainly through the cover region, in moving to 34 before he played across the line to Trego and was lbw.
Trego applied the brakes with a miserly seven-over spell from the River End which cost just seven runs, while the Overton brothers, Craig and Jamie, also impressed from the Pavilion End.
Jamie Overton claimed the second Yorkshire wicket just before lunch when Rhodes, having made a patient 28, turned a ball off his hips to leg gully, where Tom Cooper held an excellent catch diving to his left.
It became 118-3 in the 42nd over when Trego had Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale caught at first slip by Jim Allenby for 22, the ball having been parried into the air by Trescothick at second slip.
Bairstow upped the tempo by taking four boundaries off an over from Trego, three worked through the midwicket and other one hooked to long leg.
Leaning brought up his 112-ball half-century with a back-foot square drive for four off Jamie Overton, which was his eighth boundary.
Just when it looked as if Yorkshire were in the ascendancy, Craig Overton took two wickets in the 61st over.
Bairstow was dismissed the delivery after reaching his half-century, before Maxwell was caught at cover by Tom Abell.
Following a 25-minute rain interruption after tea, Somerset enjoyed further success when Adil Rashid played down the wrong line and was bowled by Alfonso Thomas for nine.
Thereafter, Yorkshire regained the initiative thanks to the efforts of Leaning and Bresnan. A flurry of boundaries hurried Leaning into the 90s and he reached his 192-ball hundred with a single to midwicket off Cooper.
Bresnan brought up the 300 by clipping a delivery from Craig Overton over the square leg boundary for the only six of the day. The ball hit a male spectator on the forehead and he was taken to hospital for a precautionary check-up.
The England seamer reached his 73-ball half-century with a cover-driven boundary off Thomas, but his partnership with Leaning ended in the next over when the Bristolian was bowled by Trego.
Thomas claimed his second wicket with the first delivery of the last over when he had Liam Plunkett lbw for a duck.
Yorkshire: Lees, Rhodes, Leaning, Gale (captain), Bairstow, Maxwell, Rashid, Bresnan, Plunkett, Patterson, Brooks.
Somerset: Trescothick (captain), Abell, Myburgh, Hildreth, Cooper, Allenby, Trego, C. Overton, Barrow, Thomas, J Overton.