A MAIDEN first-class half-century from Lee Hodgson led a Surrey fightback on the first day of their LV County Championship Division One match with title contenders Nottinghamshire at the Brit Oval.

It was the perfect start for Hodgson, in his first championship appearance, and he was eventually the last man of the day out when he edged Mark Ealham to second slip after top-scoring with 63 from 131 balls in a total of 253-8.

That was after the Nottinghamshire attack, led by Andre Adams (3-35), had looked in a strong position as they snapped up the first five wickets with just 125 runs on the board.

Earlier, having won the toss and opted to bat, Surrey were soon regretting the decision as they lost opener Chris Murtagh in the second over of the day for a duck.

Looking to drive Darren Pattinson through the covers off only his fourth ball, the 23-year-old edged to Graeme Swann at first slip.

Fellow opener Scott Newman was quickly into his stride with some delightful shots and went past 1,000 runs for the season when he struck three successive boundaries off Charlie Shreck.

However, Shreck struck in the seventh over with the vital wicket of the in-form Mark Ramprakash who walked having scored just four runs after edging to Chris Read behind the stumps.

Newman continued to dominate the attack and went on to complete his 50 with 44 coming in boundaries and off only 49 balls. Together with Jonathan Batty the pair shared a third-wicket stand of 65.

The stand was broken by the hostile Adams just before lunch when he had Newman (61) caught behind off a defensive push, giving Read his 50th dismissal of the season.

During the afternoon session, Surrey made slow progress with Usman Afzaal and Matthew Spriegel scoring just 21 runs from the same amount of overs after they lost Batty early on for 34.

Batty was beaten by a quicker ball from Adams and trapped leg before wicket.

Swann then snapped up the fifth wicket, with Spriegel caught at slip for 11.

Meanwhile, Afzaal continued laboriously, although he did quicken up after tea with a couple of superb cover drives.

Unfortunately for the former England batsman, a cover drive brought about his downfall in the 70th over when he edged to first slip for 36 after smashing a boundary from the previous ball, Adams picking up his third wicket.

A quickfire 16 from Stuart Meaker pushed Surrey towards their first batting point before he became the seventh wicket to fall with the score on 198, trapped leg before wicket to Samit Patel.