County Championship: Lancashire pair miss ages as Nottinghamshire respond after delay

LV= County Championship Division One, Trent Bridge (day three)Lancashire 214: Hutton 5-66 & 219-4: Bohannon 92, Balderson 91; Jacques 2-27 Nottinghamshire 249 : Hameed 97; Williams 3-31 Match scorecard

The two shared a partnership of 188 for the second wicket in Lancashire's second innings but both fell short of hundreds, Balderson missed what would have been his first century of first-class cricket as he was out for 91.

Bohannon fell to 92 shortly after as Nottinghamshire made gains late in the day, but there were concerns for England pace setter Olly Stone, who has had more than his fair share of bad luck with injuries in his career as he had to leave the pitch after failing to complete his 15th innings. p>

Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts of the second pair of wickets, at 219-4, Lancashire will take a lead of 184 and six wickets in hand on the final day when much better weather raised the prospect of a positive result despite losing 72 of the scheduled third day overs to rain and poor light.

Rain limited the action to 20 overs and three balls in the morning followed by 11 overs and three balls after a 5pm restart, with four and a half hours wasted between the two, and it may have been the long hiatus in their focus that worked against the two un-eliminated batters.

Balderson, who had gone from 44 overnight to 90 during that shortened but productive morning session, completed an 89-ball half-century that included nine fours and added seven more limits against a Nottinghamshire bowling alley that was mostly pretty ordinary.

But he had only added a simple more to his score after the long stop where he beat ...