Calvin Harrison spins contest for Nottinghamshire after Rob Jones' fighting 90

After their overnight seventh-wicket stand had finally reached 146, Nottinghamshire were on 399 at Trent Bridge when Lyndon James, last out, cruelly fell for 96. In 63 overs of their reply, Worcestershire then closed on 220 for six, 179 behind, the initative swinging sharply to the home side with three wickets grasped in the last 65 minutes.

At the halfway stage of a Vitality County Championship match played on a pitch now six days old, spin is coming to the fore. The leg-breaks of Calvin Harrison saw him remove in succession Adam Hose, Rob Jones for 90 and then Jason Holder for a second-ball duck.

Though Dillon Pennington generated impressive pace to finish the day with two for 25 from 12 overs, Harrison took time to pose the problems that took him to three for 78 overnight. Jones, in his third innings since joining Worcestershire from Lancashire this season, arrived at four for two but accelerated with relish in evening sunshine until the swift decline from 155 for three.

It was a welcome return to runs earlier for James, who played every match last campaign but managed a top score of only 50 after finishing 2022 with a career-best 164 not out. Needing 27 from 30 balls for a third batting point some 40 minutes into play, he helped ensure 25 were suddenly plundered from Adam Finch's next two overs.

But when his stand with Harrison, begun 25 minutes after tea on Friday, finally ended 30 minutes from the scheduled lunch, James, then on 87, saw two more fall in five overs. Harrison miscued to a running, tumbling Jake Libby at deep mid-on for 52 before Liam Patterson-White went to Brett D'Oliveira's occasional leg-breaks, the captain then running out Luke Fletcher with a direct hit.

With the last pair together, the interval delayed and far-flung fields allowing him only refused singles, James eventually swatted a Finch full-toss that seemed waist-high straight to mid-wicket and lingered in vain for it to be called no-ball.

There was no such doubt, however, about the peremptory end of both Worcestershire openers within eight balls of the reply. Fletcher, in his first match this year, put behind him an injury-hit 2023 by removing Gareth Roderick without score and Pennington saw Libby stupendously taken one-handed by Harrison, diving full length at third slip.

It was a rare failure for one of four men in this game playing against their old side as Libby, who left Nottingham in autumn 2019, fell for two after posting 1051 runs at 75.07 in his last nine games.

In an unstinting and hostile second spell of nine overs, Pennington then ended a recovery to within 20 minutes of tea that had added 78 and Kashif Ali had suggested he might surge away once more following his two hundreds in the opening game.

On 40, however, his strokeplay grew too outrageous. Walking away to leg and slashing hard, he top-edged Pennington to deep backward point where Jack Haynes took a superb sprinting catch. By the interval it was 90 for three and another 65 were added at four an over before Harrison's late strikes.

Hose top-edged a pull and skied back to the bowler for a brisk 33 and Jones, too, returned a catch, one the Harrison sprawled to accept, the umpires together deciding it had just carried. When Holder edged to slip, Worcestershire were left needing a big seventh-wicket stand of their own.