Centurion Adam Lyth enjoys playing against Somerset at Taunton.

The Yorkshire left-hander today scored his second hundred in five LV= County Championship matches on this ground to put his side in a commanding position at the halfway stage of the contest on 341-5 from 95 overs.

Tuesday’s opening day being washed out without a ball bowled has not helped Yorkshire’s cause as they search for a fourth Championship win of the season but it is far from an impossible task against a confidence-shorn Somerset outfit who have not won in six this summer.

Lyth’s 105 off 158 balls and Andrew Gale’s encouraging 75 off 188 were the main contributions, while Gary Ballance and Adil Rashid also added 48 and 47 not out respectively.

There were four partnerships of 61 or more in the Yorkshire innings after Gale had won the toss, with the visitors having to recover from 2-1 after eight balls on a pitch which graduated from a tacky one early on into a belter for batting on, according to Lyth.

Somerset’s seamers were aided by some lateral movement off the pitch, but they were extremely inconsistent and were hurt by the absence of injured or rested pace trio Alfonso Thomas and Jamie and Craig Overton.

And Yorkshire capitalised after losing opener Joe Sayers, caught at second slip by Marcus Trescothick off Steve Kirby’s second ball.

This was Lyth’s ninth Championship innings at Taunton and he has now scored 504 runs, including two hundreds and two fifties here at an average of 56.

He shared 80 for the second wicket with Phil Jaques and 103 for the third with Gale, who posted his highest score in the Championship since last May.

Gale also added 80 for the fourth wicket with Ballance before both fell in the space of four overs after tea.