Jas Singh took two wickets for Kent as Nottinghamshire got off to a positive start in their County Championship Division 1 match at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old (2-75) was expensive in his 14 overs but claimed two scalps while Ben Slater and Tom Moores excelled for the hosts, the former scoring his first 2023 four-day century.

The visitors won the toss in gloomy conditions and elected to bowl, but the grey clouds cleared as Haseeb Hameed and Slater stepped out to bat.

After a steady start in the first 10 overs, the openers upped the pace and raced to a first-wicket partnership of 65. That was broken by Joey Evison (1-50), a talented all-rounder who left Trent Bridge last year through lack of opportunities, in his first over of the match. He rapped the pads of Hameed for 18.

Slater continued to press on with flair, hitting 10 boundaries on his way to a half-century. The left-hander flew past his 50 off 70 balls, as he surpassed 7,000 first-class runs.

Will Young slapped five off the first two balls of the afternoon session, only to be caught behind by Harry Finch off Indian overseas Arshdeep Singh’s (1-42) delivery for 21.

Joe Clarke hammered the first maximum of the match to move Nottinghamshire past 150, Notts adding nine more before Clarke was trapped lbw by Matt Quinn (1-43).

Slater tucked away his 15th boundary of the innings, then connected for three more runs to take the opener to a 150-ball century.

Shortly after, he fell to Finch, continuing as stand-in wicketkeeper with Jordan Cox injured and Sam Billings taking time away from the game, who pouched an outside edge off Jas Singh’s delivery for 100.

Fresh off a second innings score of 81 against Hampshire, Moores found the boundary twice off his first three balls, going into a premature tea break, due to bad weather, 17 not out.

A persistent shower kept the game from restarting but subsided so play could resume just after 5pm.

The delay cost 15 overs and, seemingly, Kent’s hopes of building any momentum on the back of two important wickets.

Moores formed a strong partnership with Steven Mullaney during the evening session, with the former doing the lion's share of the run-scoring, notching his half-century off 77 balls.

The partnership score of 83 was broken by Jas Singh when the umpire agreed with Kent's shouts for lbw on Mullaney.

Lyndon James joined Moores to see out the final seven overs of the day and continued to attack, gaining more runs before the close.

The home team will be 275-5 overnight after Kent skipper Jack Leaning (0-15) opted against taking the second new ball for the last over of the opening day’s play.

Kent head coach Matt Walker, who has signed 21-year-old batsmen Toby Albert and Ben Geddes on loan for the game, said: “With the squad we had available, we have had to play two young bowlers in this game, so the expectation levels are a bit different. For those players, it’s about development.

“But having won the toss, which we felt was a good toss to win, we would have liked the day to have gone a bit better.

“There was plenty in the wicket. But in that first session, we gave away too many freebies, we got cut a bit too often, didn’t create enough pressure early on.

“Using that new ball well on that wicket was pretty key and 100-1 at lunch wasn’t quite where we wanted to be.

“We came back well in the second session, but let things slip a bit at the end. We got a bit sloppy and dropped a couple of catches.

“We didn’t use the ball well enough and we weren’t consistent enough through the day - but we know where we are with the squad. It was nowhere near our first-choice bowling attack and that’s no disrespect to the lads that came in.

“In terms of injuries, it has been the most extraordinary period I can remember with so many players going down.

“But it is just what it is, you can’t help it. You have to deal with it as best you can.”