Hasan Ali makes his mark as Warwickshire take control

Warwickshire have a firm grip at the halfway stage of their LV= Insurance County Championship match at Trent Bridge as they bid to cut Surrey's lead in the Division One table.

As an approaching electrical storm persuaded umpires Peter Hartley and Steve O'Shaughnessy to take the players off just before five o'clock, Nottinghamshire were in deep trouble at 82 for 5 in their first innings, still 489 runs behind after Warwickshire declared at 571 for 0.

Pakistan international Hasan Ali had taken two wickets in addition to his quickfire 54 with the bat, with wicketkeeper Michael Burgess grabbing two catches to go with his unbeaten 77 earlier.

Nottinghamshire, last season's Division Two champions, need to score 340 more runs just to avoid being asked to follow on. No further play was possible but eight of the 22.2 overs lost will be added to the schedule for day three.

Burgess and Hasan shared an 80-run partnership in a productive morning session for Warwickshire, who added 163 to their overnight 361 for 5 in that time. They lost nightwatchman Danny Briggs, who became a third victim for Jake Ball via a sharp return catch, and allrounder Ed Barnard, who tried to reverse-sweep a Calvin Harrison full toss and was bowled.

But eighth-wicket pair Burgess and Hasan plundered runs at 6.5 per over, the Pakistan fast bowler smiting five sixes, starting as he meant to go on after Barnard's dismissal by lofting Harrison's legspin over the fence at wide long-on first ball.

He repeated the feat twice more against Harrison and a couple of times off Steven Mullaney's medium pace before mistiming one off Harrison in the first over after lunch that Matt Montgomery caught falling backwards at deep midwicket. He had faced only 36 balls in making his highest first-class score for Warwickshire so far.

"I try not to tell Hasan what to do: I know he's going to whack it," Burgess said. "I was actually struggling getting it away there, and he made it look very easy and put some time back into the game, which was great."

The visitors declared shortly after Chris Rushworth had fallen for 20 off 17 balls, caught at extra cover as Harrison increased his haul to four wickets from a marathon 30-over shift.

The declaration left Nottinghamshire to face 22 overs before tea, which they would have hoped to navigate with perhaps one loss, preferably none. In the event, it was three.

The first 14 of those overs were largely uneventful, with the quota of plays-and-misses and edges no bigger than is normal with fresh bowlers and a new ball. It all started happening once Hasan entered the fray.

The skiddy right-armer, only just recovered from an ankle injury that sidelined him for three weeks at the start of the Vitality Blast, bowled Haseeb Hameed off a bottom edge with this second delivery only to hear the umpire call 'no-ball'. Two balls later he overstepped again as Hameed clipped him for four. Yet it was the two openers whose equilibrium appeared to be disturbed more than the bowler.

Ben Slater, pushing forward defensively, edged Barnard to first slip before Hameed, driving, was caught behind off a thin edge from the third ball of Hasan's second over. When Hasan then produced a beauty to bowl a bemused Joe Clarke, Nottinghamshire had gone from 51 without loss to 54 for 3, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

The pause for tea was probably welcome, yet things only worsened for the home side soon afterwards as Montgomery, having been patient to that point, went to pull Rushworth but connected poorly, giving Hasan an easy catch at mid-on, leaving Nottinghamshire in dire trouble at 58 for 4, still 513 runs behind.

Mullaney did connect as Rushworth began to drop short to him, pulling two meaty sixes back to back, but if this was an attempt to put a little pressure back on the bowlers it did not work. The fifth Nottinghamshire wicket fell two balls later as Lyndon James pushed at one outside off stump from Olly Hannon-Dalby, Burgess snapping up his second catch.