Nottinghamshire again enjoyed the better of things on the second day of their LV= county championship match against Sussex at Hove.

Despite not being able to convert their first day score up to and over the 500 mark, as Mick Newell had hoped for – the visitors nevertheless bounced back from losing their last five wickets for just a further 44 runs.

All out for 452, a couple of early Stuart Broad wickets set the tone for the rest of the day and Sussex were struggling on 270-8 at stumps, with Ed Joyce unbeaten on 104.

Broad ended the day with 3-59 and Andre Adams, with 3-48, claimed his best figures of the season, so far.
Chris Read felt his side were still in the driving seat, despite a poor start to the day.

“Obviously going into the day on 408-5 we wanted to get up to 500 or 550 if we could but we didn’t manage to do that, and sometimes that happens,” said Read.

“Steve Magoffin is a fine bowler and bowled well today – we didn’t throw our wickets away, they were genuine wickets so all credit to them for getting us out.”

The Notts skipper was delighted with the effort his side then put in, with the ball.

“The hard work we put in over the 80-odd overs was fantastic. It was a pretty docile pitch but it was a great effort by our seam bowlers, plus Samit - and it’s tremendous to have them 8 down by the close.”
 
If the first day had belonged to Nottinghamshire, the home side certainly had the better of the opening exchanges on the second morning.

With Steve Magoffin (4-110) claiming wickets in his first two overs – and then polishing off the tail after Patel had fallen to Matt Hobden – Notts would have been desperately disappointed not to have batted for longer than 43 minutes, adding only 44 runs to their overnight 408-5.

Chris Read (61) fell to the sixth ball of the opening over, edging Magoffin behind to Matt Prior, ending the sixth wicket stand at 161.

Stuart Broad (8) hit Jimmy Anyon for back-to-back boundaries in the second over but then perished lbw to a full delivery, once he’d gone down to Magoffin’s end.

Patel clipped a leg side boundary to move to 149 and eased a single on the off side to reach his latest milestone. On 156 his fabulous innings ended; punching Hobden punched straight to Ed Joyce at point.
Peter Siddle (19 not out) had the satisfaction of pulling fellow-countryman, Magoffin, for the first six of the contest but hopes of a lengthy cameo were halted once he lost the strike.

The end came swiftly, Ajmal Shahzad (2) caught at slip and Andre Adams (0) cleaned up by one that kept low, giving Magoffin his fourth wicket inside the space of five overs.

Luke Wells and Chris Nash began the response just before midday and were soon in the midst of some controversy as Notts appeared unhappy at an overthrow being taken.

Those thoughts were quickly put to one side as Stuart Broad made two breakthroughs in the passage up to lunch. Wells (1) was first to go, chipping straight into the hands of Phil Jaques at square leg.

Broad then fired one full and straight into the pads of Rory Hamilton-Brown (6), who looked crestfallen when umpire Lloyd sent him on his way.

Nash (41) and Matt Prior began the afternoon session in confident mode, with each batsman stroking elegant boundaries but after 25 minutes play the stand was broken by Andre Adams, having the opener caught at third slip by Patel.

Prior (30) began to work the ball around the fast outfield and was starting to look threatening when he fell to the returning Broad, who picked up his second successful leg before verdict.

Luke Wright (23) fell to Adams, driving loosely into the hands of Patel at third slip, just before tea.

Notts turned to Broad and Siddle at the start of the final session, with the Australian grabbing his first wicket of the day with Ben Brown (9) becoming the latest to fall to an lbw decision.

Adams, entrusted with doing the donkey work for the team by bowling up the slope, captured the seventh wicket of the innings – his third – as Anyon (14) missed an attempted pull and became the fifth batsman of the day to leave lbw.

Samit Patel then continued his enjoyable couple of days with a caught and bowled as Magoffin (1) chipped back to him.

Joyce, left with John Lewis, in at ten, as company, spurned a number of opportunities to take singles as he tried to farm the strike during the closing stages of the day.

The Sussex captain kept his side’s hopes afloat with a near-chanceless innings, his 28th in championship cricket against Notts and had moved on to 90 not out at the taking of the second new ball, five overs before the close.

Joyce bided his time before pulling Shahzad away in the penultimate over of the day to bring up his third ton of the season (186 balls 11x4) – and sixth career hundred against Notts.