Michael Powell notched the first CricInfo Championship century of the 2001 season as Glamorgan made excellent progress on a cold and bleak opening day against Northamptonshire at Wantage Road.

It always promised to be an interesting encounter between two sides promoted from the second division at the end of last summer, but 24-year-old Powell's fluent 106 in just over four hours, including 16 boundaries, gave the visitors the edge.

And with stand-in skipper Adrian Dale cracking an unbeaten 130 - his first hundred since July 1999 - they were able to establish a position of strength.

Glamorgan closed on 339-4 from 108 overs with three batting points already secured, making good use of a pitch that looked full of runs despite all the recent rain in Northampton.

Dale, leading Glamorgan in the absence of the injured Steve James, performed his first task to perfection by winning the toss, thus condemning Northants to three chilly sessions in the field.

He then joined Powell in a fourth-wicket stand worth 123 in 42 overs after the Welshmen had slipped to 101-3 at lunch, despite a promising 34 off 61 balls from Australian Jimmy Maher on his Championship debut.

Paul Taylor struck two important blows by removing Maher and former skipper Matthew Maynard, but Northants were obliged to wait a long time for their next breakthrough as Powell and Dale dug in.

The stand was eventually broken when Powell went to a bat-pad catch at silly point off Graeme Swann, leaving Dale and Keith Newell to see out the day with an unbroken 115-run partnership.

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