Adams dethrones Prince to reach landmark

The hour-and-a-half's play that was possible before the serious rain arrived just after lunch was still enough for a number of significant developments, the key one from a Lancashire viewpoint being the dismissal of Ashwell Prince for 80. That has almost certainly removed the possibility of a first-innings total of 300 or more, which Lancashire would probably have regarded as respectable after being put in.

Nottinghamshire know that Prince should have been out on day one, when Alex Hales put him down on 51. Hales made amends when the South African drove at a ball from Andre Adams and plonked it nicely into his midriff at first slip but he will, nonetheless, have to reach 30 before he is in credit when Nottinghamshire bat.

Prince was a 40th first-class wicket of the season for Adams and the 600th in a career that began in 1997. More than third have been claimed since the beginning of the 2010 season, which offers a sizeable clue as to why he has been Nottinghamshire's player of the year for both of the last two.

The wicket also gave him his 17th innings haul of five wickets or more in the same period, 14 of them for Nottinghamshire. He has one in each of his last three matches against Lancashire, against whom he averages five wickets in each of his last five innings.

Adams's form alone seems to be enough to consider Nottinghamshire at least joint favourites with Warwickshire at the halfway stage of the Championship. But there are other reasons. Darren Pattinson, their second-most effective bowler of the last couple of years, has recovered from a stress fracture of the back and will be ready to return in the second half of the season. Meanwhile, the arrival from Leicestershire of the left-armer, Harry Gurney, has corrected the imbalance in their seam attack that was created when Ryan Sidebottom returned to Yorkshire at the end of the 2010 campaign, and the 6ft 4in right-armer Andy Carter appears to have added control to the natural advantages offered by his height.

Gurney, having proved the most difficult bowler for Lancashire to score against on day one, gained reward from his fourth ball after replacing Adams in the attack as Ajmal Shahzad aimed a fairly careless waft at a ball outside off stump. Wicketkeeper Chris Read took the catch. Moments earlier, Glen Chapple had been bowled middle stump by one from Paul Franks that scuttled through low.

The new ball will be available as soon as the match starts again, which is another reason to suspect Simon Kerrigan and Kyle Hogg will not add many to the total.