TRENT BRIDGE

(day three of four: Nottinghamshire won toss)

Nottinghamshire 213 (68 overs, MJ Wood 58, R Naved-ul-Hasan 3-63) and 350 (118.2 overs, BM Shafayat 62, MA Wagh 60, SR Patel 60, GP Swann 57, AU Rashid 4-96)

Yorkshire 161 (59.2 overs, CE Shreck 5-58, MA Ealham 3-17) and 107-4 (CR Taylor 48, MA Ealham 3-23)

Lunch

With Nottinghamshire determined to grind out as big a lead as possible on this slow surface and Yorkshire concentrating largely on containment, only 54 runs came from the first 26 overs until Samit Patel accelerated towards lunch against the new ball.

Yorkshire, 198 runs behind overnight, seemed to accept from the outset that they are destined to have to bat a long time in the fourth innings to save this match and were intent only on limiting that ordeal. Admittedly, their attacking options were immediately reduced when Rana Naved-ul-Hasan went off with a stiff neck three balls into the day.

Deon Kruis, completing the opening over, ironically claimed the wicket of Mark Wagh for 60 with the eighth leg-before dismissal of the match as Wagh's strange sequence of mid-range scores continued. Of his 16 innings this championship season, nine have reached between 42 and 67 and only one, his 94 at Old Trafford, has gone further.

Yorkshire's one other success came nine balls from lunch when Adam Voges became yet another leg-before victim of swing. Dropped at slip off Tim Bresnan when 24, he now fell to the same bowler for a studied 43 from 112 balls. With 26 runs coming from the final six overs to the interval, Nottinghamshire lunched 284 runs ahead.

Tea

Yorkshire were left an eventual target of 403 to win in 133 overs when an explosive afternoon's batting from Nottinghamshire finally concluded with Mark Ealham driving Matthew Hoggard to long-off for 13 as the innings closed on 350.

From the point, approaching lunch, that Patel picked up the tempo, the home side added exactly 150 runs at 4.64 per over through two hours. It was a highly impressive strategic performance in which, after the early, careful foundations had been laid, Chris Read's plan was executed to the letter.

Patel went to a slip catch for 60 as Bresnan gained lift but Read joined Graeme Swann to add 40 in four overs. The captain's booming drive at Adil Rashid's looping leg-break sliced a catch to backward point for 26 but Swann, relishing the freedom to attack, continued to 57 from 73 balls when he charged out to Rashid and was comfortably stumped. Rashid claimed two more scalps as the tail-end bats flailed but Nottinghamshire were undoubtedly happy enough with their lead when the final wicket fell.

Close

Although Joe Sayers, continuing a wretched season in which he has made 76 runs in nine innings, fell early for two, Yorkshire had made reasonable progress to 75 for one when Mark Ealham played a match-winning hand.

The Yorkshire top order has four batsmen under the age of 25 and another, Chris Taylor, in his first championship game for 13 months. Their youth was exposed when Ealham, who turns 39 in August, claimed three wickets in 14 balls. Taylor made a good 48 before Ealham struck in his fifth over, claiming the tenth leg-before casualty of swing in the match.

He then had Jacques Rudolph, the South African acting captain, and Andrew Gale for ducks during a sequence that included eight consecutive maidens and effectively ended Yorkshire's hopes. They face a third successive championship defeat barring heroics on the final day, which they begin with 296 more runs needed for victory.