Wagh and Hussey give Nottinghamshire control

An unrelenting sun spared no one on the field but Lancashire's discomfort was all the more unpleasant for being given the run-around by a couple of Nottinghamshire batsmen - moreover at just the time of day that countries accustomed to baking heatwaves set aside for siesta.

Bowled out for 289 an hour or so into the morning session, conceding a first-innings lead of 103, Lancashire probably felt they had a chance of dragging themselves back into the contest after Nottinghamshire, having extended their advantage to 175 for the loss of only one wicket, unexpectedly surrendered a couple more.

Unfortunately for them the fall of the currently underachieving Samit Patel, shuffling across his stumps to be leg before to Kyle Hogg, leaving Nottinghamshire 79 for 3, only ushered in Lancashire's tormentor from the first innings, David Hussey. With Mark Wagh already well set, the next hour and half, with the mercury at its highest either side of tea, took the game away from them.

Where Lancashire had struggled on a slow pitch and in the face of disciplined bowling from the home side, edging along at less than three runs per over, Wagh and Hussey left scorch marks in their wake, relatively speaking. Their partnership for the fourth wicket breezed through in 24 overs, adding 141.

Hussey, as in the first innings, was in imperious form, scoring his 74 off only 78 deliveries, including 10 fours and a massive straight six off Gary Keedy, whose left-arm spin appeared, not for the first time, to be taking all the punishment but without whose economy over a marathon bowl, Nottinghamshire might have raced ahead even more quickly.

Hussey had just reached an aggregate score of 200 for the match when, shaping to cut, he was bowled by Glen Chapple. It was a disappointment for the home crowd that the entertainment was cut short but, by that stage, Nottinghamshire were 323 in front and in a position to dictate the remaining course of the match.

In the meantime, Wagh had completed his second first-class hundred of the season, getting there in 220 minutes, facing 177 balls and hitting three sixes as well as 11 fours, the maximums coming twice from strong-arm pulls, off Oliver Newby as well as Keedy, with one in between, also off Keedy, driven straight down the ground.

It was an excellent - and chanceless - effort from Wagh whose move from Edgbaston has worked out splendidly. In two and a half seasons, Wagh piled up more than 2700 first-class runs, passing 50 some 26 times and converting seven half-centuries to hundreds to average more than 50.

Contrast that with his team-mate Will Jefferson, the beanpole former Essex opener, who left Chelmsford in 2007 averaging 41.77 with 11 centuries to his name but has an average for Nottinghamshire over 22 matches of just 26, his solitary three-figure score made against a university side.

Jefferson lost his middle stump to Newby for 2. Bilal Shafayat, who has endured his own struggle for runs this year, did somewhat better to reach 30, although he undid it with a horrible heave off Keedy to be caught at mid-on.

Patel, out of the England picture because of fitness issues, is another in need of runs, more so after his departure for 1, although none of this mattered too much once Hussey and Wagh had turned the match around.

Lancashire could be grateful that Chapple's 55 in the morning session had at least enabled them to avoid the follow-on. Chapple lost his wicket when he chopped on to Ryan Sidebottom, whose efforts to bowl himself into full Ashes contention were finally rewarded, after his fruitless toil of the day before, with a couple of wickets, Luke Sutton's edge to Chris Read giving him the other.

Sidebottom's form was only a footnote to the third day's play but it could, conceivably, be the headline story on the final day. Chasing a theoretical 393 to win after Nottinghamshire declared at 289-7 with half a dozen overs left in the evening session, Lancashire lost Paul Horton to the third ball of Sidebottom's opening over, the opener run out by Wagh's fine stop and throw from square leg after turning back from an attempted single.

It leaves them facing a daunting task to survive the last day and no one will be keener to see that they do not than Sidebottom.