Robson century leads Middlesex fightback

Sam Robson strengthened his claims for an England recall two years after his last Test appearance with his third hundred of the season as he led a strong Middlesex recovery on day two at Lord’s.

Robson batted with eye-catching fluency to reach an unbeaten 114 before bad light and rain halted play 28 overs before the close.

He led his side from 49-3 to 203-3 in an unbroken stand of 154 with John Simpson (66 not out), who broke a pavilion window with a six launched off Samit Patel.

Earlier, Middlesex needed just four overs to take the final three Nottinghamshire wickets, Toby Roland-Jones finishing with 5-61 after ending the innings by bowling Harry Gurney for a duck.

Samit Patel picked out deep square leg after failing to add to his overnight 86 while Jake Ball lost his middle stump driving loosely at Tim Murtagh.

Robson and fellow opener Nick Gubbins put on 40 before the latter played on in Stuart Broad’s first spell, before Brett Hutton came on and removed Nick Compton (3) and Dawid Malan (0) in successive balls.

But as conditions eased so Robson and Simpson began to dominate. Robson, who made 231 and 106 against Warwickshire last month, was again in impressive form, driving fluently to anything pitched up and treating short of a length balls with some powerful blows through the leg side.

Not surprisingly, it was Broad who asked the most searching questions in two testing spells from the Nursery End, but Robson showed good judgement outside off stump and profited against the rest of the Nottinghamshire attack.

Simpson took a while to play himself in but when Patel came on he sent him through a window in the middle tier of the pavilion, on his way to his third half-century of the season, before the weather closed in.