The second weekend of matches in the Specsavers County Championship Division One began with three more matches getting underway on Sunday.
The good news was that the weather was good for all of the matches on day one after how much it affected play last weekend. The first day saw big performances from current and hopeful England players during the day to help their counties to either recover or to get into a brilliant position.
Wagner the star for Lancs, Broad and Read lead Notts fightback
Instead of using the option to uncontest the toss and bowl first against Lancashire, Nottinghamshire decided to have a toss which they won and decided to bat first at Emirates Old Trafford.
Lancashire started brilliantly reducing Notts to 98 for six but Stuart Broad then counter-attacked making 43 from 45 balls and along with Chris Read who made 52 which got the away side up a respectable score of 242.
The main wicket taker for Lancashire was New Zealand bowler Neil Wagner who took six wickets for 66 runs in what was an amazing spell of fast bowling from the left armer.
Before the end of play, Lancashire began their reply limping along to 25-1 to be 217 runs behind going into day two.
Robson shows England selectors his capabilities
At Lords, Warwickshire did use their option to bowl first against Middlesex, a decision they may be regretting after the hosts dominated day one of their encounter.
Sam Robson who has already played for England but was dropped, showed the selectors what he was made of as he scored a magnificent century batting through the full day.
In an opening partnership with Nick Gubbins who made 68, the pair put on 180 for the first wicket. Robson finished on a mammoth 175 not out as Middlesex finished on 317-4 after day one.
During the day's play, there was also a failure for Nick Compton who was out for a first- ball duck which is bad as the selectors want to see him get runs.
Brilliant Lyth and Bairstow rescue their team to put Yorkshire in command
At Headingley, defending champions Yorkshire got their campaign underway against Hampshire.
Hampshire chose to use their option to bowl first against Yorkshire, a decision which looked like paying dividends when they reduced the hosts to 41 for three.
At the fall of the third wicket, though it brought Johnny Bairstow and Adam Lyth together and the pair would show their class as they put on 205 for the fourth wicket.
Lyth made a brilliant 111 from 188 balls before falling to show the England selectors that he is still up for the fight to regain his England place.
Bairstow was excellent too and finished 107 not out after bad light saw an early end to play with the score on 270 for five ahead of play resuming tomorrow.