Chopra hundred reminds what might have been

Varun Chopra was not the batsman the selectors had come to watch but, with his first Championship century for almost a year, he may have reminded them of his qualities as a potential opening partner to Alastair Cook.

It will take more than one eye-catching innings for Chopra to regain lost ground. He has not represented England Lions since February 2014 and has seen the likes of Sam Robson, Adam Lyth, Nick Compton, Alex Hales and Daniel Bell-Drummond go past him in the competition for an England place.

But to score a century of this class against an attack of this quality will have done him no harm. He is a wonderfully stylish player with a range of sweetly-timed drives, a gorgeous late cut and a strong pull. He has all the ingredients required to succeed at the top level and, aged 28, time enough to show it.

His fault has, at times, been a tendency to fall over towards the off side and a habit of fencing at the ball off the back foot. But with greater balance and discipline, he helped his side avoid the potential pitfalls here and will have shown Mick Newell, the on-looking selector, that he is back to something approaching his best.

Chopra's career suffered for taking on the burden of captaincy at Warwickshire for two years. After being the only man at the club to record 1,000 Championship runs in each season between 2011 and 2013, he fell back in 2014 (though he was still the club's top run-scorer in first-class cricket and led the side to one trophy and two runners-up positions) and managed only 658 at an average of 27.41 in 2015.

Ian Bell's greater availability may have been the catalyst to changing the captaincy of the club, but Chopra could see that his own England aspirations were not advancing as he had hoped and does not appear to have resisted.

His previous record against Yorkshire was also poor. In nine first-class games against them, he had scored only 151 runs at an average of 8.88 without ever reaching 50. In 2015, he lasted five balls in all in suffering a pair at the hands of Ryan Sidebottom.

He will, therefore, have been relieved to see Sidebottom limp out of the attack midway through his sixth over. Sidebottom, who had been gaining some dangerous swing, experienced discomfort in his left ankle as he landed earlier in the over - he let out a yelp of pain that could be heard around the ground - and it seems he is most unlikely to bowl again in this game. A Yorkshire debut for David Willey at Trent Bridge on Sunday appears probable.

But Yorkshire still offered strong opposition. Jack Brooks produced a beauty to account for Ian Westwood - swinging in, it pitched and left the batsman a fraction to take the top of off stump - and hardly wasted a ball. He was well supported by Liam Plunkett, who looked slightly quicker than Chris Woakes, but offered less in terms of lateral movement, Steven Patterson and the especially impressive Adil Rashid.

It was Rashid who accounted for Bell. After compiling an elegant half-century, Bell, perhaps beaten in the flight, failed to come sufficiently far forward to smother Rashid's leg spin and edged his forward prod to first slip. Judging by the manner that Newell left before another ball was bowled, it was Bell he had come to see.

What he will have learned is unclear. Bell looked in fine form, saw off a really good spell of bowling after lunch, but failed to go on to register the commanding score that would have made him hard to ignore. It may prove relevant that, for the second innings in succession, he paid for failing to get as far forward as he might have done on what remains a decent pitch.

Jonathan Trott withstood the inevitable short-balls that greeted his arrival - Plunkett came round the pitch to him for a while - and continues to look in supreme form, while Chopra, on 99 at tea, scored the run he required to register his 19th first-class century from the first ball after the interval. Given a full four days, this match could have been a classic.

Sadly, all has been ruined by poor weather. Play was first interrupted and then abandoned due to snow on day three with most agreeing it was the coldest day of first-class cricket they had experienced. At one stage, as the Yorkshire fielders took to wearing woolly hats, it was suggested that, instead of sending a 12th man out with drinks, a St Bernard should run out with a tot of brandy. A final day of bonus point accumulation looms.