Nottinghamshire Face Anxious Finish
Nottinghamshire face an anxious finish to the County Championship season after defeat against Essex in the most recent round of fixtures.
The Vertu Motors-backed side won the toss and elected to bowl first, taking an early wicket when Dean Elgar was dismissed for seven in the sixth over.
Fellow opener Robin Das made just 20, with Matt Critchley and Luc Benkenstein also falling cheaply to leave the home side on 86-4, but captain Tom Westley led the fightback as he shared a stand of 142 with Paul Walter as his side ended a rain-affected day on 262-5.
Westley went on to 122 on the second morning before he was dismissed, but Michael Pepper and Simon Harmer shared a 133 run stand for the seventh wicket to take the score beyond 400 before Harmer was bowled for 51.
Notts managed to take the final three wickets with relative ease, with Pepper last man out for 115, to go into their first innings trailing by 457, with Rob Lord having been the pick of the bowlers with 3-88 – with Farhan Ahmed also taking three wickets.
Nottingham’s reply started with the loss of captain Haseeb Hameed early on, with his side on 37-1 when rain brought play to an early end but the third morning saw the game race away from the visitors.
Ben Slater and Freddie McCann had started the day looking to make inroads into the deficit but after the pair were removed in quick succession, Nottinghamshire wickets would tumble at regular intervals – with Joe Clarke and Kyle Verreynne the only other batsmen reach double figures.
Having been bowled out of 93, Nottinghamshire were forced to follow on and when Slater and McCann both fell cheaply, the visitors were in even greater trouble.
Hameed and Clarke put up some resistance however, and Hameed reached his century before the end of the day as Notts moved to 180-2 – still some way short of making the home side bat again.
Both were dismissed in quick succession when play resumed the following morning, and although Verreynne and Rob Lord put up some resistance, Nottinghamshire would be bowled out for 281 in the second innings to slip to defeat.
Next up is a key game with Kent at Canterbury.