SOMERSET'S James Rew continued his sparkling 2023 form as his century proved decisive in the 36-run win over Worcestershire Rapids on Sunday in the Metro Bank One Day Cup.

Rew has enjoyed a stellar 2023, racing to 1000 runs in the County Championship and showed his white-ball pedigree in this Group B fixture with a second List A century.

Wicketkeeper Rew struck eight boundaries and two maximums in a 93-ball innings that helped the hosts post 287 for nine from their 50 overs. Somerset had been 241-3 before losing their final six wickets for 46 runs in 8.2 overs, with Ben Gibbon finishing with List A best figures of 3-58.

But the Rapids, who went into the contest having won their opening two fixtures, came up short in their chase of the hosts' 287-run total, despite the best efforts of Ben Cox. 

Cox held the second half of the innings together as he shared in stands of 45 with Kashif Ali (37) and 73 with Joe Leach (41), but they lost their final four wickets for just 19 runs and suffered their first defeat of the competition. 

After the match, head coach Alan Richardson admitted his side "weren't quite at the races".

 "I think we got a lot closer than the score suggests, but in terms of how we went about our business today, we probably deserved to lose," said Richardson.

"Skill set wise we weren’t that far away with bat or ball but we were a little bit off with how we went about our business in the field. There was a lot of sloppiness and we weren’t quite at the races.

"Probably our attitude and energy wasn’t quite where it has been in the first two games.

"We played at 70 per-cent and if you do that, you are always going to have a chance of not getting the result you want.

"We were really happy with where they got to (287-9), if not necessarily how we got them there,  and we felt we needed one really good partnership to get us over the line and we never got that until Joe (Leach) and Ben (Cox) got together.

"Joe and Ben’s partnership gave us that opportunity but I always felt if we lost one wicket it was going to be quite difficult and we lost four very quickly which absolutely killed it. Ben and Joe showed their experience and skill to give us a real shot."

The Rapids will be looking to bounce back this week when they have back-to-back home games at New Road. Gloucestershire are the visitors on Thursday and Warwickshire come to town on Sunday.