Steven Mullaney made the most of another opportunity to bat against Hampshire, scoring 102 on the second day of Nottinghamshire’s Specsavers County Championship match against Hampshire on the Isle of Wight.

It was the 14th first-class hundred of Mullaney’s career, with four of them coming against the south coast side.

“I’m not too sure why that is,” admitted the 32-year old. “I didn’t think I’d played very well last week and as captain of the team I want to lead from the front.

“I’ve worked hard behind the scenes with Mooresy (Head Coach Peter Moores) and the coaching staff before this game and I felt in a good place going into it.”

The skipper began his innings in mid-afternoon with Notts on 72-4, with eight wickets having fallen already in the day. At that stage, with the surface giving increasing aid to all of the quicker bowlers, batting was a stiff challenge. Mullaney, however, played the stand-out innings of the first two days.

“I think a lot of credit has to go firstly to Tom Moores, for the way he applied himself,” said Mullaney. “And then Matt Carter was on a different level.

“He listened to what I thought was the best thing and he agreed. If he didn’t, he told me so. I thought we had a good relationship and vibe going on and that helped us put 80 on, which has given us a chance in the fixture.

“I had a bit of luck, being dropped three times, but sometimes you make your own luck in this game.

“I didn’t think about the score, I just thought how are we best going to drag the game out and the longer we did it, the more frustrated they got.”

The home county still held a first innings advantage of 71, but Mullaney remained positive.

“It’s better than it being 171, which it looked like being at one point,” he said. “They are effectively 74 for one in a one-innings game, so I’m convinced if we bowl like we did in the first innings, we’ll find the luck and get the edges that we need.”

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