Parsons' all-round ability fires Somerset

Somerset's Keith Parsons has taken quite a likening to the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy. In last year's final he put Leicestershire to the sword with a superb man-of-the-match performance, and here yesterday, in front of a near full house crowd of 5,500, he rose to the occasion once again.

This time it was Worcestershire who suffered at the hands of the 29-year-old all-rounder, as Parsons almost single-handedly won this quarter-final tie for Somerset by four wickets, with 15 balls to spare. In doing so he kept alive his side's hopes of retaining the Trophy.

Parsons' contribution, a magnificent 121 off only 100 balls, and bowling figures of 2 for 37 off 10 overs, made some of Ronnie Irani's all-round displays for Essex and England this summer seem nothing more than adequate. It appears this is the year of the unfashionable, unflashy all-rounder and Parsons' performance more than made up for the nasty thumb injury that seems to have prematurely ended Marcus Trescothick's summer.

It was an innings his team-mate would have been proud to play himself and it seems hard to believe that Parsons scored his first ever one-day hundred at the rate he did, because he did not give the appearance that he was taking the Worcestershire bowling apart. His first 50 runs came off just 36 balls and after that he slowed down, taking a further 41 to move to three figures.

It was a fabulous display of controlled batting from this orthodox but limited batsman. All he did was push the good balls into the gaps for singles and smash anything even slightly over-pitched down the ground for four. It was fitting that his one straight six, into the Old Pavilion, was the shot that took him to his hundred.

Parsons received good support from the aggressive lefthander Ian Blackwell and Rob Turner, with whom he all but saw Somerset home in a partnership of 106.

Worcestershire will have felt they threw this game away after the blistering start they were given, by their captain, Graeme Hick, and Vikram Solanki. In a quick-fire partnership of 81 these two made the most of some indifferent bowling, a fast outfield and a typically batsman friendly pitch, bringing up the hundred in just the 14th over.

Against a Somerset attack deprived of its two injured strike bowlers, Andrew Caddick and Richard Johnson, this offered the visitors the ideal platform to score more than 300. However after the dismissal of Hick, bowled by Parsons, and Solanki, who hoicked the ball to mid-on, Worcestershire's innings fell away with an array of sloppy shots putting paid to the middle order.

Watching all this from the other end while compiling an excellent unbeaten 85, was Ben Smith, who had every right to give his colleagues a rollicking when back in the dressing-room – if his county coach, Tom Moody, had not beaten him to it.