And three for Jimmy Anderson, two in an over, old teammate Will Williams lbw and Henry Brookes caught. Gloucestershire all out 136, and I predict a couple of days of toil in the field.

Luckily, there are no games north of the Midlands in this round. The Met Office promise: a mix of sunshine and showers across northern areas today, with some heavy and a risk of hail. Drier and brighter further south, although a few showers developing across Wales and the Midlands into the afternoon. Pleasant in any sunshine.

Controversy over the new substitute ruling continued to rumble on after Lancs were not allowed to swap Tom Bailey in for the injured Ajeet Singh Dale in the match at Bristol. Both Bailey and Singh Dale are right arm seamers, but match referee Peter Such ruled that Bailey, who came on as 12th man fielder to replace Singh Dale, was too experienced, and instead Lancs had to call on left-arm allrounder Ollie Sutton, who was at a second XI game at Grace Road.

By the time Sutton got to the ground, everyone else had left.

“There’s always going to be grey areas but if Tom had bowled the next ball, I don’t think anyone would have batted an eyelid,” Lancashire head coach Steven Croft said.

“We certainly weren’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. It’s a tough one to take and it’s bizarre how it hasn’t been granted.

“In our eyes, Tom is deemed to be a like-for-like replacement, it’s not like someone is coming in and bowling 10mph quicker. Instead, we’ve had to call up a left-arm seaming all-rounder and that doesn’t sit right with us really.

“I don’t know how it’s come to that conclusion but we’ve got to crack on with it.

“I think it was based on stats and experience, but none of that was stipulated to us when the regulations came out.”

Somerset’s James Rew was a shot of ginger on a rainy Championship day. He purred the last ball of the evening to the rope with a perfect high elbow, to finish unbeaten on 77. With innings of 64, 122 and 48 already this season, Rew’s average is 100 – numbers to lighten an England selector’s step. Thirteen wickets fell around him, with Jake Lehmann (76), who has stepped into James Vince’s boots, again top-scoring for Hampshire. There were three wickets each for Lewis Gregory and Craig Overton.

Essex had time before the deluge to reduce Warwickshire to 113 for seven – the pinpoint Jamie Porter leading the way with four for 36. Sam Hain, with 44, was the rock around which the other Warwickshire players failed to stick. There was a first Essex wicket for Zaman Akhter, a Saca (South Asian Cricket Academy) graduate who moved to Chelmsford from Bristol in the great winter raid on Gloucestershire’s bowling stocks.

Akhter’s old club suffered a mid-order malfunction against Lancashire. Ben Charlesworth and Ollie Price had lifted Gloucestershire to a respectable 80 for one, after Cameron Bancroft was dopily run out for six. But George Balderson (four for 27) then took three for five before and after lunch, and when Graeme van Buuren was caught for a three-ball duck, the innings was in disarray. Lancashire had their own problems when Ajeet Singh Dale limped off the field with a hamstring injury and was replaced by Ollie Sutton, summoned from a second XI match in Leicestershire.

Middlesex made a plucky recovery against Northamptonshire on a bouncy Wantage Road pitch from the depths of 20 for three after winning the toss and choosing to bat. Half-centuries from Leus Du Plooy and Ben Geddes and an unbeaten seventh-wicket stand of 120 between Zafar Gohar and Joe Cracknell brightened the scoreboard, before bad light stopped play.

DIVISION ONE

Southampton: Hampshire 238 v Somerset 154-3

Edgbaston: Warwickshire 113-7 v Essex

DIVISION TWO

Bristol: Gloucestershire 124-6 v Lancashire

Northampton: Northants v Middlesex 284-6

Hello! Happy Saturday morning, may your park run have been fruitful and your coffee tasty. Four games in progress this round, with James Rew’s selectorial nudge the highlight of day one. Play starts at 11am, do pull up a seat.