Bell leads from the front to put Bears in firm control

Bell hit his 34th first-class hundred to lead the Bears to 376 all out and then watched as Boyd Rankin and Darren Maddy picked up three wickets apiece to bowl out the hosts for 117.

The 6ft 7ins Irishman Rankin added another three victims in 10 balls as Notts followed on and crashed to 60-4 at the close – still 199 behind.

England’s Stuart Broad removed Bell for 139 and then top-scored with 24 in their first innings, with the hosts losing 14 wickets in 41 overs.

Marcus Trescothick scored his second half-century of the match to put Somerset firmly in control against Sussex at Hove.

The visitors established a lead of 150 runs with nine second-innings wickets in hand.

Their increasingly commanding position came despite the efforts of James Anyon, who hit his first first-class fifty after Sussex had lost six wickets for 24 runs in six overs after lunch, including that of England wicketkeeper Matt Prior, who was struck on the elbow.

Mark Robinson, the Sussex coach, said it was purely a precautionary measure that Prior did not then keep wicket and that he was only badly bruised.

Steve Harmison took his first championship wickets for nine months as Durham set Worcestershire a mammoth task at New Road.

Re-emerging after an early-season injury, the 32-year-old former England fast bowler put the Division One strugglers in trouble with a return of 3-29 in 11 overs.

Graham Napier smashed a record-equalling 16 sixes on his way to a remarkable 196 from 130 balls in Essex’s Championship game against Surrey at Croydon.

Napier equalled the record for the most sixes in a first-class set by Andrew Symonds for Gloucestershire against Glamorgan in 1995 before he was last man out in Essex’s 548.