A combination of rain and Asa Tribe held up Nottinghamshire‘s push to record a first victory of the Rothesay County Championship season against promoted Glamorgan at Trent Bridge.

Tribe, the 22-year-old who impressed with England Lions during the winter, enhanced his reputation further with an unbeaten 82 in the face of some hostile bowling but 52 overs lost to the weather was the main source of frustration for Nottinghamshire as Glamorgan closed on 132 for 2.

The 2025 champions had set the Welsh side a daunting 478 to win after declaring at 311 for 9 in their first innings half an hour into the third day. Glamorgan need another 346.

They had them one wicket down at lunch after England’s Josh Tongue removed opener Eddie Byrom for 9 only to be off the field until 5.15pm after rain arrived during the interval. Australian seamer Fergus O’Neill picked up his fifth wicket of the match soon after the resumption but, after another interruption, suffered no more losses.

Tongue did for Byrom with a short, quick delivery the opener could only send looping to first slip but Tribe looked in very good touch, striking 11 boundaries in reaching 59 from 53 balls at lunch, with Glamorgan were 83 for 1. Nottinghamshire gave him a more testing examination after the stoppages, with plenty of short stuff, but he has so far proved equal to the challenge.

However, the showers that were forecast began to develop during the interval and quickly merged into a longer spell of rain, heavy at times.

O’Neill removed Zain-ul-Hassan caught behind soon after the restart but only 16 overs of the 25 left in the day’s revised schedule could be bowled, either side of another stoppage for bad light.

Although the forecast for day four is better and they will feel there is enough time left in the match to take eight more wickets, Nottinghamshire might yet regret not asking Glamorgan to follow-on after dismissing them cheaply on Saturday.

All out for 113, with O’Neill and Brett Hutton taking four wickets each, Glamorgan were 166 behind on first innings, having lost their last six wickets in just 75 minutes on Saturday morning. But rather than give his bowlers a crack at blowing away their opponents for a second time, potentially wrapping up victory by Saturday evening, skipper Haseeb Hameed instead chose to put more runs on the board.

Thanks to a fine 136 from Joe Clarke, well supported by Ben Slater (70), they were 450 in front at Saturday’s close. They chose to bat on a little longer nonetheless, the main beneficiary of which was the talented O’Neill, who finished unbeaten on 36 to go with his first-innings half-century in what has been an excellent first appearance of the season.

Glamorgan’s primary focus will be on survival in the face of such a challenging target. Only one team has successfully chased more to win a match in Trent Bridge history – and that was more than a hundred years ago, when Middlesex made 502 in the fourth innings in 1925. The only other successful run chase above 400 on the ground came the following summer, when Nottinghamshire scored 419 to beat Leicestershire.