Garard Brophy, above, battered his way to 81 and Charlie Roebuck 46 not out as Yorkshire took advantage of "force-feeding" to set Nottinghamshire a challenging target on Day 3 of their Second Eleven Championship match. Then rain returned to mock the sportsmanship of both sides.

This was the match in which 18 wickets crashed on Day 1 at Lady Bay, Nottingham, and all-rounder Richard Pyrah recorded his first Championship five-for. Day 3 began with Yorkshire 43 ahead with eight second-innings wickets standing, and the hosts strove with might and main to take the wickets.

Brophy and Callum Geldart resisted the onslaught, and survived well into the second hour before Geldart was caught off the slow bowling of Scott Elstone. Too little too late...so Plan B was actioned "force-feed" or declaration bowling!

Brophy sailed past the 50 mark and Roebuck walloped the boundaries. Brophy was stumped after lunch off the very occasional bowling of opening batsman Alex Hale, and Pyrah helped himself to a run a ball - but took care not to score too quickly and ruin the target arithmetic.

The target was set - 241 to win off a minimum of 55 overs. The only snag? After three overs the rain returned to bring a premature end to the chase. That was that. A draw. Let’s hope the weather has dried up for the visit to Derby next week.

DAY 1: Eighteen wickets! Probably a case for the pitch inspectors at a higher level, but not for the Second Eleven Championship at Lady Bay, along the road from Trent Bridge.

Perhaps it was local knowledge that made Nottinghamshire captain Mullaney ask Yorkshire to bat - particularly when the home side included one-Test wonder Darren Pattinson and Charlie Shreck, both returning after injuries.

Pattinson cartwheeled Joe Root’s stumps early doors, but that was the only early success for the two bowlers, although three more wickets were captured by the lunch interval - two by Andrew Carter and one by  Lancastrian exile Mullaney.

The White Rose must be a red rag to the bull for Mullaney - he went on to take five more wickets in the afternoon, his 6-39 easily the best of his Second Eleven Championship bowling performances to date.

Yorkshire's 182 could not present too much of a problem to the Nottinghamshire batsmen? It did: in 80 minutes before tea five wickets were captured for 67 runs - including a third-ball duck for Samit Patel, caught behind in Ben Sanderson’s second over.

Six runs later came the sixth wicket...but  Simon Elstone and Greg White then got their heads down, adding 14 runs in  a seventh-wicket stand which equalled the Nottinghamshire record against Yorkshire for that wicket in the Championship. Both partners fell within nine balls five overs before the close, Nottinghamshire were 17 runs ahead with two wickets in hand

DAY 2: The lead was extended by 39 runs when play was resumed - Pyrah clinched the last two wickets to finish with his first Championship five-for.

Root and Gary Ballance wiped out the arrears and took Yorkshire two dozen ahead before Ballance was caught by that man again, Mullaney, off Carter - and six runs later the Lancastrian trapped Root leg-before on the stroke of lunch.

Rain delayed the restart, but relented sufficiently to allow another four overs and a lead extended to 43 runs before it became more persistent and ended play at 2.30pm.

Words and Statistics: MICHAEL SNOOK