Tom Abell stars in Somerset's tense 10-run win

Somerset secured a home quarterfinal in the Royal London One-Day Cup on Saturday (July 10) after picking up a tense 10-run win over Sussex at the County Ground in Taunton. Tom Abell, 22, was the star of the show as he struck a well compiled century for the hosts to propel Somerset to 237 before the bowlers led by Max Waller's 2 for 30 sealed the game.

Opting to bat first, Somerset suffered an early blow as Sri Lankan veteran Mahela Jayawardene fell early for 3. Three balls later, off the same over, Jofra Archer removed Peter Trego for a duck. Abell then joined skipper Jim Allenby, with the latter counter-attacking his way to a 21-ball 30 after the twin blows.

Archer castled him in the 10th over to leave the hosts reeling at 47 for 3. James Hildreth and Abell steadied the ship and put on 70 runs for the fourth wicket before Danny Briggs trapped Hildreth plumb in front for 26. Following Hildreth's dismissal, Abell hardly received any support from the other end as the wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals. He went on to reach his century off 107 deliveries in the 42nd over and was the ninth batsman to be dismissed with Allenby's 30 remaining the next highest score in the innings . Archer's late strikes in the innings gave him a morale-boosting five-wicket haul.

Chasing 238 for victory, Sussex were reduced to 25 for 2 by the eighth over. Irish batsman Ed Joyce consolidated with a 60-ball 39 before Tim Groenewald broke through Sussex's middle order to leave them reeling at 95 for 7 at the halfway mark.

At that stage, the result looked like a mere formality before the lower order began a spirited fightback. After his heroics with the ball, Archer delivered with the bat as well as he hit two sixes and two fours to score a 44-ball 35. He put on 61 for the eighth wicket with Ajmal Shahzad to revive his side's hopes.

The game looked dead and buried again when Shahzad departed with 63 more runs needed for the win but the last wicket pair of Will Beer and Briggs made life tough for the hosts by dragging the game until the end. But when 28 runs were needed off the final two overs, the duo found it difficult to find the boundaries and scored only six off the penultimate over. Needing 22 off the last six balls, they managed only 11 and fell short by 10 runs.

Brief scores: Somerset 237 in 48.1 overs (Tom Abell 106; Jofra Archer 5-42, Danny Briggs 2-47) beat Sussex 227/9 in 50 overs (Ajmal Shahzad 39; Tim Groenewald 3-30, Max Waller 2-30) by 10 runs.