CHELMSFORD

(day one of four: Gloucestershire won toss)

Gloucestershire 275 all out (68 overs, North 98, Napier 4-50). Essex 66-0 (Chopra 43*, Gallian 23*)

Lunch

Thanks to a beautifully assured knock by Marcus North, Gloucestershire recovered from 52 for three in the 13th over after electing to bat.

North, the Western Australia left-hander, looked a class apart. He will be 29 on Monday and is not near the Australia team, but he pulled Graham Napier with ridiculous ease after Napier, from the Hayes Close End, had hurried the others.

Danish Kaneria, introduced in the 19th over and bowling faster and flatter than normal, was swept and then cut by North. Taking advantage of the absence of a third man – when will they learn – North brought up his half century off 65 balls by guiding Ravi Bopara for a second boundary there, off the last before lunch.

It is a fine, hot day here with some cloud cover. The pitch looks green, but which Jack Birkenshaw, the ECB pitch liason officer, assured us was bone dry and would take turn from the first day.

Kadeer Ali was leg-before in the eighth over to Napier as he drove with his head falling to point. Napier, the man of the moment, looked back to around the 85mph mark he was hitting regularly a few years ago. The left-handed Will Porterfield thin-edged a defensive push to a ball angled across him by David Masters, in the next over.

Four overs later Hamish Marshall edged a ball coming back into him from Masters and James Foster, the Essex wicket-keeper, changed direction and took good one-handed catch with the ball dying to his right.

North and Alex Gidman, who apparently turned down £100,000 from Warwickshire to stay at Gloucestershire, seized the initiative.

Tea