Some explosive batting followed by proper line and length bowling, on a track which, for all it has offered the seamers, still demands that they put the ball in the right place, saw Surrey take a commanding lead on day two at Trent Bridge. The gulf in class between these two sides had shone through by the close – which was more than the sun had done – as the home side finished 88 runs away from making the defending champions bat again with just four wickets intact.

Proceedings began with the game finely balanced, however it did not stay that way for long. Surrey added 186 runs in the morning session, thanks initially to Hollioake and then to Azhar, who raised his half-century in just 42 deliveries and was undefeated on 82 at lunch.

Adam Hollioake made his intentions known by cover driving the first ball of the day for four. Two overs later he took five boundaries off Steve Elworthy. The first was a top-edged pull over the keeper, but there was nothing fortuitous about any of the others.

The visiting captain cut Charlie Shreck for four to claim the first batting point in the 40th over, but as soon as Elworthy switched to the Radcliffe Road End he undid Hollioake with a delivery that was faster and fuller than anything else he had received in the opening half an hour.

In came Azhar Mahmood, who had swung the ball so prodigiously the day before to set Surrey on their way. The 28-year-old had only been in a short time when he drove Steve Elworthy for a massive six over long-on. Four overs later he lost his countryman, Saqlain Mushtaq, who required attention after taking a blow on the right thumb, to a catch behind the wicket.

With the conditions still far from ideal for batting, Azhar and Tudor then put on 82 in fourteen overs for the eighth wicket. Either side of the three hundred mark Mahmood struck two more thunderous sixes – the first over extra cover off the bowling of Andy Harris and the next, straight, off Greg Smith, who could otherwise claim he had tested the Surrey batsmen.

Jason Gallian was the only other bowler to do so. Concluding that he could probably do little worse than his eminent colleagues, he soon applied the brakes and even picked up the wicket of Alex Tudor, who tried to cut a ball that was too close him.

After twenty overs were lost to rain, the Pakistani clubbed the first ball back over mid-on for four and the third over mid-wicket for six. Elworthy was then plopped into no man’s land for two. The last ball of the over raced off a thick outside edge to the boundary and it seemed that Azhar Mahmood was closing in fast on his first hundred for Surrey.

However, he fell two overs later, attempting a pull that was brilliantly caught at square leg by the Nottinghamshire keeper, Chris Read. Azhar had made 98 off 95 balls, including four sixes and twelve fours.

Martin Bicknell, who made an equally rapid 33, and Jimmy Ormond then added twenty-eight in three overs before Ormond drilled Greg Smith straight to Usman Afzaal at mid-on.

Nottinghamshire, needing 182 to make Surrey bat again, immediately lost Bicknell to Bicknell when the left-hander shuffled across to ball that was fractionally short of a length.

After tea was taken early due to another shower Guy Welton and Usman Afzaal went in the space of three balls when Jimmy Ormond had catches gratefully accepted at wide mid-off and low down at second slip.

Eight overs later Ormond accounted for Bilal Shafayat with a ball that pitched and left him. In the closing overs Shafayat was joined in the pavilion by his skipper, who was adjudged leg before to the second of two convincing shouts in Bicknell’s twelfth over, and by Read who was taken wide to third slip’s right in the 34-year-old’s next.

GO TO:

BACK TO: