Sean Abbott and Dan Worrall have kept England's county champions Surrey in the hunt for a victory in their clash with Hampshire at The Oval on a day when one of the Aussie duo shone with the ball and the other with the bat.
Abbott, who had started his county season with a five-for against Lancashire at Old Trafford, this time impressed with a swashbuckling half-century as he enjoyed his first match at The Oval in his second stint with Surrey.
Worrall, a former Australia white-ball international who was the fast bowling spearhead for Surrey in their championship-winning campaign with 39 wickets but is now eligible for England, then took 3-30 off 13 probing overs on Saturday to set up an exciting final-day climax.
Hampshire still looked well placed at 182 ahead on 5-198 in their second knock, but both Australians had bowled impressively, with Abbott taking 1-27 in his tidy 13 overs, snapping up the key wicket of James Vince.
Earlier, Abbott had provided real oomph to Surrey's late first-innings revival, cracking an unbeaten 52 off just 40 balls, which featured him hitting Keith Barker for four, six and four off successive balls while also clouting Mohammad Abbas for a maximum over long-on.
At Trent Bridge, the crowd were treated to a potential pre-Ashes duel between Somerset's Australian Test hopeful Cameron Bancroft and Nottinghamshire's evergreen England paceman Stuart Broad.
Broad had Bancroft playing and missing a few times but the veteran bowler ended wicketless, with the Australian eventually being trapped lbw by South African Dane Paterson for a hard-earned 27 eked out over 70 minutes at the crease.
Somerset were eventually skittled out for just 173 thanks largely to Brett Hutton, who outshone Broad with his best Nottinghamshire return of 6-45.
Notts, seeking to push home their first-innings advantage of 83, battled to 6-187 second time around but found the 38-year-old Peter Siddle a handful in the damp conditions as the veteran Aussie took 2-26 off 13 overs to go with his pair of scalps from the first innings.
With PA
