[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Day Two

Morning: The clouds still blanketed Trent Bridge early on Friday, and although Charlie Morris claimed the vital wicket of Tom Moores caught at cover for 19 with the fourth ball of the day, two boundaries in the same over hinted that mopping up the tail would prove an expensive job. And so it was, as Stuart Broad was given license to swing, and the Pears resorted to banging in short balls in an increasingly desperate effort to force an error from the England legend. Though it might be the tried and tested way of dismissing Broady in a Test innings, at county level he was relatively untroubled by the barrage, hitting a brisk 45 before partner Luke Fletcher was caught for 18 at mid-off from an Adam Finch delivery, and the incoming Dane Paterson perished for 2 in exactly the same fashion four balls later. All out for 266, Nottinghamshire had succeeded in pushing the first-innings lead into three figures - the one thing the Pears had wanted to avoid - and things promptly went from bad to worse as Ed Pollock was bowled for a duck by Fletcher off the second ball of the innings, Jake Libby was caught for 3 driving to backward point, Azhar Ali went for 5 in the same way, and Brett D'Oliveira mistimed a shot to midwicket for 5 off Paterson. At 32-4 it looked like a humiliation in the making, and only the resilience of Jack Haynes provided a ray of hope that an innings defeat might be avoided as lunch was taken on 37-4.

Afternoon: The sun came out for the first time all match, but it was necessarily a long, cautious game of crease occupation for the two Pears batsmen as they whittled down the deficit. All it took was one careless, over-confident moment - deciding to hook Stuart Broad on the verge of a half-century - and Haynes was pavilion-bound once more, caught at backward square leg for 49, leaving Worcestershire 99-5 and still in arrears with only one recognised batting partnership remaining. There could be no more errors, and thankfully, with the pitch playing a lot easier, Ed Barnard and Ben Cox guided the visitors into a slender lead and the safety of the tea interval.

Evening: Like spring giving way to a sudden, unexpected summer, the clouds yielded for an evening of warm April sunshine just as Worcestershire rediscovered how to bat when chasing a game. Having brought up an assured half-century, Barnard was seldom troubled against the international-standard Notts bowling attack, even forcing Stuart Broad into one of his trademark wicket-starved huffs as he nudged and stroked his way to a third first-class ton in the dying overs. For his part, Cox reined in his natural attacking instincts and completed a well-deserved fifty before Worcs closed on 225-5 with a lead of 118.

As things stand, the pendulum is still firmly in the home side's favour, but the Pears fightback has restored some dignity to the overall performance at the very least. With the second new ball now four overs old, surviving the first hour of Saturday would potentially put Worcs in a position to set a competitive target on a pitch showing some signs of variable bounce. For all their vaunted might, the hosts haven't got this one in the bag just yet.