Gloucestershire plunged into trouble after losing the toss on the opening day of the LV County Championship match with Essex at Bristol.

On a green pitch offering plenty of seam movement, the home side found themselves 38-4 after 20 overs, having lost three of the wickets to opening bowlers David Masters and Chris Wright.

Kadeer Ali was first to go in the seventh over, having made six. He got an inside edge to Masters and fell to a good catch by wicketkeeper James Foster diving low to his left.

It was 21-2 when Craig Spearman, on 11, gave a more straightforward catch to Foster off Masters, edging a defensive shot. The batsman walked before umpire John Holder answered the appeal.

That was Foster’s 350th first-class victim for Essex and he soon made it 351 as Alex Gidman attempted to glance a ball from Wright. The Gloucestershire CCC skipper had made only a single and it was 22-3.

Chris Taylor edged a ball from Ryan ten Doeschate over the slips for four, but the next delivery saw him spoon a simple catch to Varun Chopra in the covers. Taylor departed for 10, swishing his bat in annoyance at his mistake.

Masters finished an excellent 10-over opening spell with figures of 2-9, while Wright took 1-18 from his stint of eight overs from the Ashley Down Road End.

It was left to Hamish Marshall (29 not out) and James Franklin (11 not out) to see Gloucestershire to 68-4 off 31 overs at lunch.

Gloucestershire First Innings Lunch

Kadeer Ali c Foster b Masters 6

C M Spearman c Foster b Masters 11

H J H Marshall not out 29

A P R Gidman c Foster b Wright 1

C G Taylor c Chopra b ten Doeschate 10

J E C Franklin not out 11

Total 4 wkts (31 overs) 68

Fall: 1-10 2-21 3-22 4-38

To Bat: S D Snell, I D Saxelby, J Lewis, V Banerjee, S P Kirby.

Bowling:

Masters 10 5 9 2

Wright 8 4 18 1

ten Doeschate 7 1 23 1

Chambers 5 0 12 0

Middlebrook 1 0 6 0

Umpires: J W Holder and J W Lloyds