Ravi Bopara ton keeps Essex on top in clash with Nottinghamshire

Confidence runs high in this Essex team, who will surely extend their bubbling run to five wins in six matches here against a Nottinghamshire team whose morale is at the other end of the spectrum.

Their day had begun with a disappointment of sorts as Nick Browne, who had plans to reset himself and push on for the fourth double-hundred of his career, fell to the fifth ball of Stuart Broad's opening over without adding to his overnight 163. Pretty much everything else worked out in their favour.

A second hundred of the season from Ravi Bopara, who extended his 62 to 135, was the cornerstone for another session and a half of steady accumulation to which all his partners contributed before Ryan ten Doeschate declared with a lead of 306.

Psychologically, Nottinghamshire must have felt beaten already, faced with needing to score substantially more than they have managed in all but two of their second innings efforts this summer simply to oblige the Essex openers to pad up again. They can take something, however small, from managing to survive the remaining 46 overs in the day at only five down but the reward is unlikely to be better than a stay of execution.

Victory will see Essex sitting on the shoulder of leaders Somerset in the Division One table after a run of five wins in six matches. Their next two matches, before there is another pause in the Championship programme and Twenty20 takes centre stage, are at Chelmsford, which has been their stronghold. If they fancied their title chances before this match, they will be still more bullish now. This was their first win away from home.

In his own estimation, Bopara's innings was not one he felt he would remember particularly, which says something about what he has come to expect of himself. Too many singles was the gist of his summing-up, too often a fielder in the right place. Yet at times he still looked in gorgeously good touch. This was his 31st first-class hundred in his 217th match, in his 18th season. It is four years since he last pulled on an England shirt, a casualty of the last World Cup. Yet having made his Essex debut as a 17-year-old he feels he can anticipate a long extension to his county career.

He reached the 31st first-class hundred of his career from 184 balls. In common with much of the Essex innings, it was unhurried, necessarily watchful at times. Broad still posed a threat, even as the hours and minutes ticked by and the workload he was required to carry turned into the toughest pre-Ashes workout he has been put through so far. Bopara was 115 not out when he was beaten twice in the same over by his erstwhile international teammate.

Broad can never be faulted for effort in a Nottinghamshire shirt, yet he astonished even seasoned admirers as Bopara's exhibition ended on 135. Running out of partners, and with the apparent objective of a 300-run lead achieved, Bopara let himself more consciously off the leash, only for his progress to be halted immediately by an outrageous catch by Broad himself.

Fielding at long-on, legs surely heavy from the 33 overs he had bowled, Broad eyed the trajectory of a steepling shot as Bopara took a full swing at a delivery from Jake Ball and instinctively set off along the rope, gathering speed as the ball began to descend.

Thoughts crossed the mind of quite a few watching that this is an Ashes summer and that his strike-bowling partner in crime had limped off the field at Sedbergh School earlier in the day, giving rise to unwelcome anxiety for the national selectors. No such considerations were in Broad's mind, clearly. Instead, he flung himself full length with his right arm outstretched and, to general astonishment, came up holding the ball.

"It was probably one of the best catches I have seen, especially after he had bowled 30-odd overs," Bopara said later. "It was an unbelievable catch but as I saw him running around I thought to myself, 'It's Broady. If anyone is going to pull it off, he can' because I've seen him take a few one-handed blinders before. So well done to him, it was a great catch - and he bowled really well too."

Broad grinned from ear to ear as his team-mates rushed to mob him, happy to join in a moment or two of light relief.

Reality returned quickly though. Having spent 170 overs in the field, of which their newly-signed overseas recruit, the Indian off-spinner R Ashwin, bowled no fewer than 60, they faced another 46 in which to avoid the ignominy of a three-day defeat.

They lost Steven Mullaney, who had been unable to bowl because of a sore knee, without chipping anything off the deficit, the captain bowled shouldering arms. Thereafter Chris Nash was leg before to Peter Siddle, Ben Slater was run out after a woeful mix-up and Joe Clarke tickled one down the leg side to be caught behind. Samit Patel was caught at slip. All in all, a familiar story.

Ashwin's personal marathon amounted (jointly) to the most overs bowled in an innings by a Nottinghamshire bowler since Andy Afford clocked up 61 against Surrey here in July 1994. His three wickets were a decent return, in the circumstances. He has been signed as a get-out-of-jail card, in essence, in the hope that he'll find late summer pitches to his advantage. However many overs he bowls, however, his returns may not be enough.