In this paper, a stabilisation problem for a class of nonlinear systems is considered, where both the nonlinear term and the nonlinear uncertainty are mismatched and subject to time-varying delay. Under the assumption that the delay is known, a reduced-order observer is designed using an appropriate transformation. A sliding surface is proposed in an augmented space formed by the system outputs and the estimated states. The sliding mode dynamics are derived using an equivalent control approach, and the Lyapunov-Razumikhin approach is exploited to analyse the stability of the sliding motion. Then, a sliding mode control law is developed such that the system can be driven to the sliding surface in finite time. A simulation example shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.