A poor first innings performance left Nottinghamshire with work to do on the final day of their Specsavers County Championship match against Surrey at The Oval.

The visitors were bowled out for 182, conceding a first innings advantage of 141 to their hosts. When Surrey batted for a second time, they reached stumps on 244 for five, an overall advantage of 385.

Arun Harinath scored 83 for the home county and Steven Davies applied some late gusto, hitting an unbeaten 45 from 29 balls. Brett Hutton took the bowling honours for Notts, taking three for 61 from an unbroken 13-over spell.

Earlier, Notts lost the final eight wickets of their first innings, in the morning session, with Michael Lumb top-scoring with 48. Gareth Batty’s off spin produced figures of four for 23. 

Steven Mullaney said the problems had all stemmed from the first session of the day.

“We’re obviously disappointed with the way we batted,” he said. “There are no demons in the pitch. I think one ball from Batty spun off the straight.”

The Notts captain added, “We knew it was going to be tough but we didn’t bat as well as we should have done and we face an uphill battle tomorrow.

“If you look at the dismissals there were some bad choice of shots and probably the run out didn’t help – but it happens.

“We said we had to lay down a platform. Our goal was to bat the day but we weren’t able to bat the session, so we’ll have to put that right for the second innings. If we need to bat 96 overs to save or win the game then that’s what we have to do.”

Beginning the day on 82 for two, still 241 runs behind, Notts added a boundary to their total when Michael Lumb clipped the fourth ball away for a boundary.

Brendan Taylor hit the first two deliveries he received, both from Tom Curran, to the ropes but on 21 he fell to an lbw decision against the bowling of Ravi Rampaul.

Only 15 runs came in the opening half an hour but the shackles were broken as Lumb pulled Curran to the fence, to bring up the 100.

Curran responded with a confident lbw shout but, as the batsmen scampered a leg bye, Lumb and the bowler collided, with the seamer coming off second best.

Riki Wessels took 18 deliveries before getting off the mark, eventually working Rampaul through backward point for his first run.

The first bowling change brought Gareth Batty into the attack after 45 minutes of play. His first delivery was clipped nicely away for four by Lumb, who then carved him through the off side later in the same over.

Wessels ran Curran to the third man fence to move to five but then nibbled at the same bowler and was caught behind to reduce the score to 120 for four.

Samit Patel began positively, hitting three boundaries in his first 11 deliveries, before being run out by Rory Burns after a mix up in communications with his partner.

Batty bowled a ball to Lumb that bounced and turned viciously – and followed it with one that was flatter and went straight on to clip off stump; the left-hander out for 48.

A trio of Notts batsmen then all left with a score of eight to their name; Brett Hutton caught at short leg off Batty, who then had Matthew Carter caught at mid off.

Jake Ball hit his first two deliveries for four before having his stumps flattened by Stuart Meaker.

With nine wickets down lunch was delayed slightly – but not for long – as Harry Gurney fell to a catch at deep midwicket, giving Batty his fourth wicket in just 11.4 overs. Dan Christian remained unbeaten on 19 not out.

Batting for a second time, Surrey’s openers were largely untroubled in putting 50 on in 20 overs together. On 24 Rory Burns had a slight scare when he nudged at the spin of Patel but the ball just fell short of Steven Mullaney at slip.

With the overall lead on exactly 200 Notts struck, with Patel catching Burns at point, from the bowling of Ball. The opener made 34 but had to trudge his way off wearily after picking out the fielder.

In contrast to the morning session which brought 100 runs for eight wickets, the afternoon saw Surrey add 94 for the sole loss of Burns.

The home side continued to build after tea, with Kumar Sangakkara and Arun Harinath putting on 92 for the second wicket.

Brett Hutton stemmed the flow of runs in a lion-hearted spell from the pavilion end. He was rewarded when Sangakkara was caught by Carter at extra cover for 49.

The same combination then accounted for Gary Wilson for two, before Harinath’s second fine knock of the game ended with another catch at point by Patel.

Steven Davies lofted Carter over the midwicket ropes as he searched for quick runs towards the end of the day but the last word belonged to Notts, as Tom Curran hit Patel out to Jake Libby in the deep.

 

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