Only thirty overs were possible on the opening day of Surrey's first visit to Trent Bridge in three years, but that was enough for Nottinghamshire to account for Walters and Newman as well as plant the seed of doubt in Mark Ramprakash's mind that if he is to go on and make his hundredth first-class hundred on a ground where he has only one three-figure score to show from 19 previous visits to the crease, then he will probably have to achieve it in adversity.

The hosts won the toss and, unsurprisingly, elected to field. Both teams made two changes to the sides that lined-up for their previous championship outings. Nottinghamshire brought in Mark Ealham and Graeme Swann for Paul Franks and Bilal Shafayat, while the Brown Caps opted to replace Alistair Brown and Chris Schofield with Chris Jordan and Stewart Walters.

Walters, promoted to open, failed to drop his hands to the ninth ball off the match and was caught at third slip by Swann off the bowling of Darren Pattinson. Ramprakash drove Charlie Shreck through extra cover for four in the third over, but had to wait 17 overs for his next boundary, which came from a similarly executed shot, off Mark Ealham.

Meanwhile, Scott Newman pulled Pattinson through wide mid-on for four in the fourth over and despatched Shreck to the cover boundary in the fifth. In the sixth over, however, the 28-year-old left-hander swished at a wide ball and was caught behind by Chris Read, tumbling away to his left. Newman stood his ground for a moment, presumably in disbelief that he had even been tempted to playing a shot.

Surrey were 45-2 when the first interruption arrived at 12.24pm in the 23rd over. Thanks to the efforts of Nottinghamshire's groundstaff, play got underway again at 5.00pm. In the 24th over, Jonathan Batty angled a lifting delivery from Pattinson down to the third man boundary. In the next over the damp outfield denied Ramprakash a four through extra cover, but Batty did manage to get another boundary behind square on the off-side, off Andre Adams, before the rain returned at 5.25pm.

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