Lunch Report: Nottinghamshire 202 & 178-6; Kent 238

Lunch on the third day of four (Notts won toss)

Ryan McLaren had Nottinghamshire in serious trouble when the home side resumed on 106-2 under overcast skies.

A spell of three wickets for nine runs in just 18 balls from the Kent Kolpak signing which ripped the heart out of the Nottinghamshire batting, suggested that this match could end in defeat before the day’s end.

Nottinghamshire had entered the game as Championship leaders, but in the eighth over of the day Australian Adam Voges chased a wide ball from McLaren and was caught behind.

The new man Samit Patel fell in McLaren’s next over, again caught by wicketkeeper Jones. The prized batsman though was opener Matt Wood who had added just eight runs to his overnight fifty when he pushed at one that kept a little low, missed it and was given out lbw.

By now reeling at 120 for five Nottinghamshire hopes of setting any kind of a decent target looked to have faded, an impression that was reinforced when Bilal Shafayat offered a loose shot to a ball from Robbie Joseph and only succeeded in chopping on.

That brought Stuart Broad to the crease. The lanky England rookie represented a last flickering hope for Nottinghamshire to make a fist of their second innings.

Broad, who scored a fifty in the previous Championship match against Yorkshire, certainly looked very solid. There was no impatience visible. He played a watchful game and had been out in the middle for 40 minutes, facing 24 balls in that time, before he got off the mark.

When he did though it was a handsome shot through mid-wicket to the boundary off Martin Saggers and later in the same over he glanced another delivery to the fine leg boundary.

He and his partner Chris Read, the Nottinghamshire captain, settled in and had added 44 by the time they went in for lunch, an overall lead of 142 runs and a far healthier position than the one in which they had found themselves earlier in the session.