Another stellar knock from centurion Joe Clarke ensured that the Vitality County Championship contest between Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire remained finely poised at the conclusion of its first day as the hosts posted 305/6.
Clarke (105) battled his way to a second hundred in as many matches to continue the rich vein of form he discovered last year, forming a crucial 133-run partnership with Ben Slater (70) to weather an early storm.
Lyndon James and Calvin Harrison then put on an important seventh-wicket partnership to ensure the hosts finished the opening day in a strong position.
Despite the early losses of skipper Haseeb Hameed and fellow opener Ben Duckett to Nathan Smith - the former bowled and the latter caught in behind by Gareth Roderick - Slater and Clarke sought to galvanise the hosts at 34/2 and build a healthy score before lunch.
They did just that, posting an additional 49 runs before the end of the session, and Slater secured his first half-ton of the season in well-measured fashion after the resumption of play.
Joe Clarke followed not long after, and in quite some style, as he stepped up a gear to thrash 25 runs from just 11 deliveries and add a second fifty to his strong start to the campaign.
Slater reached 70 before his fine knock eventually came to an end, strangled down the leg side as Roderick plucked Adam Finch’s edged delivery behind the stumps.
Matthew Montgomery then mustered 11 before falling victim to a neat diving catch from Jason Holder in the slips, with Jack Haynes joining Clarke in the middle before tea.
Clarke had to wait until after the second break to complete back-to-back hundreds, finding the rope on 12 occasions - including three maximums - on the way to a crucial three-figure knock as one of County Championship’s early leading run scorers.
Joe Leach struck Jack Haynes’ pad to dismiss his former team-mate for 15 not long after, and Notts added a further six runs before Clarke ended his stint on 105, caught at close quarters by Roderick for Josh Baker’s first wicket.
The visitors had their tails up after Clarke’s dismissal, but the Green and Golds refused to falter as Lyndon James and Calvin Harrison provided stern resistance with a 67-run strong seventh-wicket partnership which saw out the remainder of the evening session to leave the hosts in a healthy position.
Notts reached 300 runs before the end of day one, posting 305/6 at stumps as James (39*) and Harrison (25*) will look to add further runs in the morning of day two (11am start).