County Championship: Luke Wells puts Sussex on top against Worcestershire

Luke Wells' century was his 15th in first-class cricket

Luke Wells followed last month's 258 against Durham at Hove with an unbeaten 139 to give Sussex the upper hand on day one against Worcestershire.

The left-hander hit 20 fours to guide the home side to 339-3 at the close.

After going in following the 13th-over dismissal of Chris Nash (22), Wells put on 125 with Harry Finch (82), before a stand of 137 with Stiaan van Zyl (54).

Luke Wright kept him company to stumps, reaching 27 not out, a day after giving up the Sussex captaincy.

Worcestershire began the game third in Division Two, with a 100% record this season of four wins out of four - and looking for a seventh straight Championship victory, going back to last season.

Captain Joe Leach removed Nash, Wright's replacement as skipper, when he was caught at mid-wicket. But it was their sole success of the morning, a single-wicket-per-session trend which continued throughout the day.

Finch missed out on a hundred when he edged Josh Tongue to slip and van Zyl was bowled by Ed Barnard after tea, but Wright's first scoring stroke was a six off the latter as he and Wells laid the foundation for a further substantial partnership on day two.

Wells' century was his second in succession at Hove, but his previous knock was an eight-ball second-innings duck against Kent at Canterbury last week.

Worcestershire left out batsman Tom Kohler-Cadmore, in the wake of him turning down the offer of a new three-year deal to move to Yorkshire next season.

Sussex skipper Chris Nash told BBC Radio Sussex:

"It's been a brilliant day. Batting first at Hove is quite tricky so to only lose three wickets has hopefully set the game up for us.

"Luke Wells will get the headlines for his hundred and rightly so. Arguably, he has played better in this innings already than he did when he made 258 against Durham a fortnight ago. He's put us in an amazing position. but I must also give credit to Harry Finch.

"We would probably have had a bowl if there had been a toss. We lined up our team with five seamers and there was enough there in the first session for their bowlers too, so for us to get through only losing one wicket was a really good effort.

Worcestershire director of cricket Steve Rhodes told BBC Hereford & Worcester:

"We have had some fantastic days in the Championship this season so we were probably due a bad one.

"I couldn't fault the effort but we possibly got the toss wrong. Having said that the ball did dart around early on so you have to give credit to the Sussex batsmen.

"They got through the new ball and then batted really well. Luke Wells is a gritty player who has spells in and out of form like everyone but once he gets in he wants to keep going and can get a big score."