WHEN Yorkshire supporters of a traditional bent talk about proper cricket, it is probably today's County Championship play at Trent Bridge they have in mind.

Having been bowled out for 290 and with a first-innings lead of only 29 runs, rather fewer than they had probably envisaged, Andrew Gale's bowlers stuck rigidly to their disciplines and frequently strangled Nottinghamshire's batsmen into runless submission during two fine sessions.

It worked too. Until Samit Patel (51no) and Chris Read (13no) shared an unbroken stand of 53 for the sixth wicket in the final hour of play, Nottinghamshire were toiling.

Now the hosts will go into the final day on 151-5, a lead of 122 runs and with plenty of power to add.

A Yorkshire win probably depends on their seamers enjoying success in the first hour of the morning session. Gale's batsmen may not fancy chasing anything more than 200 against a high-quality attack on a pitch which is exhibiting uneven bounce.

Nevertheless, the skills displayed by the White Rose county's bowlers recalled their displays of the last two title-winning summers. That is a healthy sign as the Division One season really gets going.

Nothing epitomised Yorkshire's afternoon dominance more than the innings of Alex Hales. The England opener – a free-scoring and, by nature, attacking batsman – had to battle for 145 minutes and 115 balls for 34 runs before he was fourth man out, bowled by a ball from Jack Brooks which kept low.

Hales' dismissal in the evening session left Notts on 75-4 and with a lead of only 46. By then the home side had already lost Steven Mullaney (2), who was lbw to David Willey in the first over of the innings, Greg Smith (17) and Michael Lumb (9).

Both were removed by Steve Patterson, the Beverley seamer finishing with fine figures of 13-5-17-2, while Liam Plunkett claimed the day's final wicket when bowling Riki Wessels for 15.

Earlier in the day, Yorkshire had added 120 runs to their overnight 170-4 thanks largely to some strong hitting by Plunkett, who followed his century against Hampshire in the opening match of the season with an innings of 51 off 53 balls.

The biggest disappointment of the morning had been Alex Lees' dismissal for 92, caught by Read off Harry Gurney in the third over. Gale then added 43 with Adil Rashid before he nicked Jake Ball's third delivery of the day to Mullaney and departed for 44.

It was then left to Plunkett to take responsibility on another good day for the Middlesbrough all-rounder. He took 16 off a Stuart Broad over and saw his team safely past Nottinghamshire's first-innings total of 261.

"I get a lot of time in the winter to practice my batting and I just thought I would try to counter-attack and it worked," said Plunkett.

"We bat all the way down and we back ourselves – and although it would have been nice to take another couple of wickets late on, Samit and Chris played well.

"We're confident, though. When we bowled, we pitched it up, we didn't give them too many four-balls and to prevent them from scoring at more than 1.5 runs per over for most of their innings was a great effort.

"Hopefully we can keep them to a lead of fewer than 200 and then we'll back ourselves to chase it."