'Today was a dream debut for me ' says Gareth Andrew despite Sabres defeat

Somerset youngster Gareth Andrew made a dream debut for the Sabres in their opening match of the season at the County Ground in Taunton, but despite his impressive performances with both bat and ball his side still went down to Durham Dynamos by seven wickets.

After Saturday's victory over the same opposition in the county championship, this result will be a bitter disappointment to the Cidermen, who were without the strike force of Richard Johnson and Nixon McLean, who were both being rested in readiness for the game at Derbyshire on Wednesday, because of minor injuries.

All rounder Keith Dutch was selected along with debutant Andrew, and Steffan Jones and Keith Parsons were both recalled to the team.

With the weather threatening from the start it was no surprise that when Durham won the toss they elected to field first.

The Sabres innings got off to a bad start when they lost Mike Burns with the score on 4 when he was bowled by South African Dewald Pretorius who was making his Durham debut.

Marcus Trescothick and Jamie Cox took the Sabres onto 71 before Cox was out for 19 in the 13th over, followed shortly afterwards by James Bryant who failed to score.

Parson received a warm welcome when he went out to the wicket and batted confidently for his 35 runs,before he was caught by Danny Law off Vince Wells.

Trescothick was once again showing just what a talented player he is and delighting the crowd with an array of attacking shots, until he chanced his arm once too often and was caught by Michael Gough off Wells for 74.

When Andrew went out to bat Somerset had slipped to 183 for 7 and looked in danger of being bowled out cheaply, but the young man had other ideas. He got off the mark with a leg glance to the boundary off Indian Test star Javagal Srinath, and from that moment he looked very much at home in the big arena.

Along with Keith Dutch the young all rounder added 35 for the eighth wicket before he was caught by Gary Pratt at mid on from the bowling of Pretorious for 22.

Dutch brought some late cheer to Sabres fans before he became another of Pretoroius for a hard hit 39, and by the end of the innings Somerset had moved onto 233 for 9.

For the visitors Pretorious took 4 for 31 from his 9 over spell.

The Durham reply seemed to be going along steadily enough until in the sixth over Andrew, who opened the bowling from the Old Pavilion End tempeted Gough to edge a catch to wicket keeper Turner, to claim his first wicket in the game at this level.

Better was to follow when in the same over Vince Wells gave a hard chance to Trescothick at slip where the England man made no mistake. The youngster from Glastonbury had taken two wickets in one over and the ground was buzzing.

More wickets could have so easily followed but it just wasn't to be. A couple of chances went down, and by the time the players left the field because of the rain Durham had recovered to 112 for 2.

When the player returned with a revised total of 215 to chase the visitors made no mistake, and thanks to a third wicket stand of 164 between Gary Pratt ( 101 not out) and Nicky Peng they reached their target for the loss of three wickets with 8 overs to spare.

After the game Gareth Andrew told me: "I never dreamt that my debut would be as good as this. It just couldn't have been better, it was just ideal. I felt nervous when I went out to bat and nothing can prepare you for that, but once I got off the mark a lot of positivity went through me. I felt even more nervous when I started my opening spell with the new ball, but once I got my first wicket I felt fine. Today was a dream debut for me."