Jason Gillespie hailed the performance of three-wicket seamer Jack Brooks and admitted he was happy with Yorkshire’s day one performance against Worcestershire as they just edged ahead at New Road yesterday.

The opening day of the new county season was far from a walk in the park for the champions even though they reduced the hosts to 11-2 inside eight overs after losing the toss.

England all-rounder Moeen Ali and centurion Tom Fell shared a third-wicket stand of 118 either side of lunch to fashion a recovery and give the Division One newcomers a platform.

Thankfully for Yorkshire, Tim Bresnan sparked a strong fightback and finished with three wickets to match Brooks, who ended with figures of 3-38 from his 16 overs.

When Worcester resume this morning, they will be 264-8 from 82 overs on a dry pitch which is expected to take turn later in the match to suit their twin spin threat of Moeen and Sri Lanka’s Sachithra Senanayake.

Brooks took the opening two wickets before adding a third before tea. He had Richard Oliver caught behind, Daryl Mitchell caught fending to second slip and Tom Kohler-Cadmore bowled off an inside edge pulling.

"I thought Brooksy was absolutely brilliant,” said coach Gillespie. “He ran in, he bowled quick and had a really good line and length.

“He's spoken about wanting to hit his spell hard and not just ease into it. That's something he's really worked hard on at practice through the winter.

“Basically, he doesn't want any warm-up balls, he wants to be straight into it having an impact. I think he did that really well.

"I think the pitch, outfield, it's all a bit slowish, so batters had to work hard for their runs and bowlers have had to work hard to get anything out of the pitch. It's just been a patience game really.

"We've had some periods, maybe a little 20 minutes or half-an-hour before lunch and then 10 or 15 minutes afterwards, where we didn't quite get it right. Outside of that, I've been pretty happy.”

There is certainly room for improvement for Yorkshire. Three catches went down, while they leaked 43 runs in the first ten overs after lunch as Moeen (62) and Fell excelled.

Bresnan’s switch from the New Road to the Diglis End, however, proved crucial.

He had Moeen and Fell, for 114, both caught behind by Andrew Hodd, the latter to a superb one-hander down leg. He also trapped Alex Gidman lbw.

Ryan Sidebottom and Steve Patterson were the other wicket-takers among the eight-man Yorkshire attack, which only included six overs from off colour left-arm spinner Karl Carver.

"Brez, I thought his first spell was ok. He was probably a little bit on the short side, but once he switched around to the other end, he got his length a lot better,” added Gillespie.

“He felt a little bit more comfortable at that end even though the breeze wasn't great for swinging the ball away. He found his length, and that was the key. He picked up some key breakthroughs."