Chris Nash celebrated his career-best at Taunton yesterday and then admitted he was just as pleased for the man who spent most of the day watching from the other end.

On a day when everything fell into place for Sussex after Mike Yardy won the toss the Sussex opener scored 157, beating his previous best of 134 against the same opponents in June, while Murray Goodwin ended the worst run of his county career with an unbeaten 96.

Nash shared stands of 98 with Ed Joyce and 171 for the third wicket with Goodwin as Sussex enjoyed their best day of the season with the bat, closing on 326-3.

Nash said: “Muz scored fluently from the first ball which helped me a lot because it took some of the pressure off. He slog swept two fours like he’s been doing for the last ten years and you just knew he was back. He looks in great nick again and everyone is so pleased for him.”

Winning the toss here is always important here but with Somerset opting to play three spinners there was the hint that this might not be a typical Taunton wicket where batsmen invariably fill their boots.

In fact it was more like a slow Hove pitch with only a modicum of turn. No wonder the Sussex batsmen felt at home, particularly in the evening session when they scored 134 runs.

Timing was hard work, particularly in the morning, but apart from one sharp chance Nash offered to short leg on 27 which Arul Suppiah failed to cling on to the 26-year-old played pretty faultlessly.

After just two hundreds in seven seasons since his debut Nash has now made three this summer and this one came a week after his match-winning 100 not out against Worcestershire.

A sizeable contingent of Sussex supporters in the west country sunshine enjoyed Goodwin’s fluent contribution just as much.

There were signs at Hove last week that he was finally emerging from a horrible run in which his previous highest score before yesterday was just 65.

Perhaps he knew it was going to be his day straight away when Somerset’s highly-rated wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter dropped him down the leg side when he was still on nought.

Growing in confidence as his partnership with Nash blossomed, he was soon playing his favourite shots either side of the wicket with the certainty of old and his judgement of what to leave outside off stump was also back to its best.

Nash spent a while in the 90s before reaching the fifth hundred of his career just after tea with a clip through mid-wicket but once there he added another eight boundaries and was as surprised as anyone 15 minutes before the close when he guided a long hop from Alfonso Thomas to backward point, having faced 284 balls and hit 23 fours.

He said: “I got a pair here last season so I felt I owed them a few runs. It was nice to help put the team in a really strong position.

“I have never batted through an entire day before and it was something I wanted to do but it was a bad ball and we were trying be positive and unfortunately for me it just carried.”

It was as impressive a display of concentration as stroke play and left Nash just 35 runs short of 1,000 for the season.

Sussex made one change to the side which beat Worcestershire last week with Luke Wright left out because of a hamstring strain but it will not prevent him from joining up with England’s one-day squad next Tuesday.