Nottinghamshire dominated all three sessions of the opening day of the LV Championship season in Canterbury to trail Kent by 41 runs come the close on Wednesday.

Having dismissed the hosts for only 162 inside 53.4 overs, the newly promoted visitors went on to reach 121 for three after 42 overs at stumps after recovering from a sticky start.

~ Day one in pictures >>>

Kent's overseas all-rounder Yasir Arafat, who arrived in the UK only 40 hours before the start of the game, gave them an encouraging start to the day's final session by removing Matthew Wood and Will Jefferson, but the Outlaws rallied tthrough Mark Wagh, who went on to post a 97-ball half-century.

Wood (6) was first to go, playing across an Arafat off-cutter then Will Jefferson (13) dragged one onto leg stump.

Martin Saggers replaced Arafat at the Nackington Road End to remove Adam Voges (17) leg before.

But Wagh (51) and Samit Patel (22) dug in until stumps, leaving Kent with plenty to ponder going into the second day of this scheduled four-day game.

Earlier, Kent succumbed inside two sessions after electing to bat first on what transpired to be a seamer friendly pitch.

Darren Pattinson, a 29-year-old pace bowler born in Grimsby but raised in Australia, did the damage taking five for 22 on his championship debut for Nottinghamshire and in only his sixth first-class game.

Only four Kent batsmen reached double figures, the clear top-scorer being Rob Key with 79 from 163 balls who was ninth out during a shoddy Kent batting display.

Charlie Shreck also bowled well for the visitors, taking four for 65.

The game resumes on Thursday.