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Report & Reaction: Nottinghamshire v Hampshire Men, Rothesay County Championship
Report & Reaction: Nottinghamshire v Hampshire Men, Rothesay County Championship
Read the match report & hear reaction from Hampshire Men's Rothesay County Championship match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge
Day Four
Rothesay County Championship - Day 4: Nottinghamshire (377 & 104) beat Hampshire (304 & 123) by 54 runs. Nottinghamshire 22pts; Hampshire 4.
From ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
Needing four more wickets in the Rothesay County Championship title race at Trent Bridge to complete victory over Hampshire before the visitors could muster 117 more runs, reigning champions Nottinghamshire got home in seven minutes into a delayed lunch. They remain four points behind leaders Somerset, one ahead of Warwickshire.
Hampshire had inched forward by just seven before Olly Stone, in the day’s sixth full over, pulled out a double-wicket maiden. Seven balls later, his yorker to new batter Kyle Abbott left the South African palpably LBW and the end beckoned - only for the last pair to survive 20 overs.
A brilliant catch by substitute fielder Ben Martindale at point finally undid last man, the debutant Manny Lumsden for 21, leaving Scott Currie unbowed on 44. Stone, with a final six for 28, has claimed 25 wickets at 12.48 apiece in his last four matches, bursting into rampant form at exactly the right time.
He earlier ended impressive resistance from 18-year-old England U-19 batter Ben Mayes when Kiwi wicket-keeper Mitchell Hay, full length to his right, pulled of an outstanding one-handed catch that would not have carried to slip. With Mayes gone for 25, Eddie Jack departed second ball before Abbott’s swift demise.
On a pitch of impressive pace and carry, with the odd one lifting if a divot was found, it was a match relished by fast bowlers – and also by glovemen. Ben Brown’s ten catches in the match equalled the Hampshire record of dismissals behind the stumps, shared with three others, and Hay’s introduction to English cricket brought him seven.
A late signing when Kyle Verreynne was one of the South Africans summoned back for early international preparation, Hay ‘enjoys’ the bizarre, niche distinction of being one of 17 batters in world cricket (Joe Root is another) to have finished on 99 not out in a one-day international. A win on first championship outing was perhaps less frustrating.
No more than five points have separated the top two in the title race since 18 May and so it remains with Notts trailing Somerset by those four, potentially decisive points, as we go into the final two rounds. It is a matter of debate - and weather invariably has a say in autumn - but Notts, who next visit Hove to meet a Sussex side whose home record this season is strong, arguably have the hardest run it.
They finish at home to Yorkshire from 24 September. Somerset for their part are away to Yorkshire before concluding at home to Surrey whilst the third contenders, Warwickshire, play two of the sides, Essex and Leicestershire in the present bottom three. Each of the trio must assume the other two will win twice and treat every point like gold dust.
For their part Hampshire, permanently lodged in the relegation zone since 27 April, have the formidable task of trying to close a 32-point gap on eighth-placed Essex if they are to evade second-division cricket next year for the first summer since the 2014. Realistically this means at the least winning one and drawing the other of their reamaining matches against Leicestershire at Grace Road and then Sussex at home.
Only Somerset have bettered Hampshire’s present run of eleven first-division summers without break in that period (there was no championship in 2020): every other side has dropped down for at least one campaign. They have finished within the top three in four out of the last half dozen tables but only avoided relegation by one point on the final day last year. It would be some achievement to do so again.
Day Three
Rothesay County Championship - Day 3: Nottinghamshire 377 and 104, Hampshire 304 and 61-6. Hampshire require 117 more runs to win
From ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
An astounding crash of home wickets either side of lunch at Trent Bridge seemed to preface the upset of the season but Nottinghamshire would not so easily relinquish the champion’s crown.
In the space of thirteen withering overs, Hampshire, mired at the foot of the Rothesay County Championship table and 73 behind on first innings, transformed the home side’s 13 without loss to 47 for six, of which 17 were extras. Eddie Jack, who turned 21 the day before, swept aside the top three in 17 balls and 17-year-old Manny Lumsden, on debut, had two in his first seven.
After Scott Currie joined the destruction, Lumsden, with pace and lift, then swept away three more in 13 balls to return five for 36 in 104 all out, leaving Hampshire to reach 178 for a third win of the summer. The fun had only just started.
Roused, Notts reduced them to 11 for 4 when Jake Lehmann went for two after his unbeaten 133 earlier was his best in Britain and it became 27 for six when two fell on the same score. By the time bad light halted frantic proceedings at 5pm, the unbroken seventh-wicket had lowered the target to 117.
There was more life than on Wednesday in a pitch that had perhaps started to crack and both Olly Stone and Dillon Pennington claimed three wickets in seven-over new-ball spells. Felix Organ top-edged a swipe to be held at a tantalising second attempt at mid-on by Pennington who then had Nick Gubbins and Toby Albert in three overs.
Albert, driving, was outstandingly taken low down at backward point by Sam Seecharan, a substitute fielder, on a day when no chances escaped amid the high tension. Lehmann, cutting and top-edging, followed as Stone reprised the bowling that brought him ten for 94 in Nottinghamshire’s last win, against Surrey three matches ago.
When Nottinghamshire had batted again 35 minutes from lunch 173 overs stretched ahead, turning thoughts to when their declaration might follow and how generous a target they could risk. Cricket always mocks presumption. Haseeb Hameed had in fact soon gloved the muscular Jack behind for five and Freddie McCann miscued him to third man for four as the carnage commenced.
Six balls after tbe interval, Jack hit the top of Ben Slater’s off stump and after 22 runs had doubled the score, Lumsden produced the superb balls of speed and sharp bounce that did for Jack Haynes and Mitchell Hay, as wicket-keeper captain Ben Brown moved further towards ten catches in the match.
Currie removed Liam Patterson-White from a top-edged pull and, after 28 had come in a counter-attacking six overs, he staightened one to bowl Fraser Sheat for 16. Lumsden, a Basingstoke boy like the great John Arlott but educated, decidedly unlike him, at Radley, removed Olly Stone to post 88 for 8, supposedly the Angel’s Number.
Not so for Nottinghamshire. Four overs later, after Joe Clarke, for 37, and Pennington had both gone to fine running catches trying to take on Lumsden, they were all out at an early tea.
Notts had earlier grasped their third and final bowling point with 16 balls to spare after Hampshire resumed their first innings on 267 for seven with ten bonus-point overs remaining. Hampshire, their last pair together, were nine runs short of a second batting point at the cut-off point before finishing on 304.
Should they win, the bonus-point element could yet be critical for Notts, four behind leaders Somerset, but would look academic for Hampshire if they lose. They would need to close a 32-point gap to avoid relegation.
Day Two
Rothesay County Championship - Trent Bridge: Nottinghamshire (377), Hampshire (267-7). Nottinghamshire lead by 110 runs.
From ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
In both Rothesay County Championship divisions, only Lancashire have scored fewer runs per wicket lost this year than Hampshire’s average of just 24.50. Yet Jake Lehmann, their South Australian playing under a British passport, can boast the third-highest aggregate of runs (921) in the top tier.
Unsurprisingly, as their reply at Trent Bridge reached 267 for seven, 110 runs behind Nottinghamshire, it was Lehmann, initially rapid then circumspect as wickets fell in the afternoon, who top-scored.
With sometimes novel footwork, reminiscent of his father Darren, the Australian all-rounder, he posted a superb unbeaten 115.
Crucially, he found a resolute partner in Scott Currie, a Dorset player as a teenager, who resisted 143 balls for 35 to revive his side from 165 for six in a seventh-wicket stand of 97 that has kept Hampshire in the game.
Currie, with a single century to his credit two years ago when on loan to Leicestershire, helped leave Nottinghamshire, now 16 points behind new leaders Warwickshire, still needing two wickets from ten overs on day three if they are to take maximum bonus points and then seek the win.
There was something of a false dawn for them in the morning when Olly Stone removed Felix Organ, caught behind from a defensive edge, with the first ball of the day. Straight and fast, it whipped out the opener for six.
In fact, it then took 80 minutes for the seamers to hit a consistently taxing line, and they were in danger of wasting a ball only four overs old at the start.
The reply, from 12 for one, moved untroubled through 18 overs until, in four balls, both Toby Albert for 31 and Nick Gubbins for 35 played round full balls and went LBW. The breakthrough came from fourth-seamer Tom Giles’s second over in this only his second game.
Dillon Pennington found essentially the same delivery from round the wicket for left-handed Gubbins, and suddenly neither new batter had even faced. But Lehmann, jumping about the crease like a man on hot coals, attacked with zeal and was 33 from 29 balls by lunch, at 114 for three.
Hampshire had reached 141 before decline set in. A misjudgment from Joe Weatherley saw him play no shot and prove a third consecutive LBW for 25 when Stone returned to the attack and, with Liam Patterson-White’s left-arm spin introduced at the Stuart Broad End, only 50 runs came from the 30 overs to tea.
From 15 of them, the spinner conceded only as many runs whilst, at the other end, Ben Brown, playing with a captain’s self-denial, suddenly undid his hard work with a rash cut hard to first slip.
The teammates from the same Canterbury side in New Zealand then combined as wicket-keeper Mitchell Hay accepted the catch from a top-edged hook that brought Fraser Sheat his second success in ten balls when 18-year-old Ben Mayes departed for one.
Thereafter the game changed. Either side of tea, taken on 190 for six, Lehmann’s support from Currie would last through 38 overs. Patterson-White’s spell of only 28 runs from 21 wicketless overs had maintained unfailing pressure, but when he stood down for the second new ball at 216, no breakthrough was forthcoming until 31 balls remained.
A beauty from Sheat finally breached Currie’s defences to rattle the stumps after Lehmann’s hundred had earlier come from 160 balls a few overs before.
His best in this country of 116, when briefly playing for his father’s old county Yorkshire in 2016, was one run from being equalled by the close. For champions Nottinghamshire, it has been a frustrating time since their last win, against Surrey 18 days ago.
Day One
Rothesay County Championship - Trent Bridge: Nottinghamshire 377, Hampshire 12-0. Nottinghamshire lead by 365 runs.
From ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
Joe Clarke’s fourth hundred of an outstanding campaign revived champions Nottinghamshire from early peril after Kyle Abbott’s three morning wickets helped take his season’s tally for Hampshire to 57 at 15.12 overnight. Bravura late strokeplay from Liam Patterson-White, however, with 92 from 91 balls, completed a rousing finale.
Nottinghamshire, four points behind the Rothesay County Championship title leaders Somerset at the close, posted 377 at Trent Bridge against visitors who remain in acute danger of returning to second-division cricket for the first time since 2014. They were xxx-xx at the close
Though bouyed perhaps by the news that Leicestershire may face a loss of points for their Grace Road pitch, and no decision has yet been announced regarding a possible penalty for Surrey too, Hampshire still need to close an improbable 30-point gap to be safe.
No such worries for Nottinghamshire as Clarke moved to 105, adding 78 for the third wicket with Jack Haynes (48) and 136 with Mitchell Hay for the fourth as the Kiwi, his side’s fifth overseas signing this summer, made 49 on county debut. Liam Patterson-White’s onslaught cemented then three batting points
It seemed either reckless or very bold first thing that Nottinghamshire should unveil an emerald green pitch against an attack led by Abbott, one of the most successful overseas seamers ever to grace the circuit. Within eight overs, put in, they were 20-3. Abbott removed Haseeb and Freddie McCann before Ben Slater skied a pull off Scott Currie, each going for single figures.
Slater had earlier taken a withering blow to the arm when defending himself against a chest-high full toss from Eddie Jack only to fall, after a long stoppage, four overs later. At that point neither new batter had faced and indeed Clarke took 22 balls to get off the mark.
Haynes, however, feasted on Jack, wayward on the eve of his 21st birthday, and at one point took two sixes and a four in four balls from debutant seamer Manny Lumsden, so impressive for Engand U-19 in their victory over Pakistan in the youth Test last week but sorely punished here.
After 64 had been plundered in eight overs, Abbott, now in his fortieth year, returned to undo Haynes for 48 from 46 balls as lunch came at 106-4. He should have claimed another when Hay, on 29, was missed at second slip in the afternoon.
For all his repute as a white-ball dasher, the New Zealander was impressively content to bed in, supporting Clarke until cutting at a lifting ball from Jack and edging behind 25 minutes from tea.
Clarke, then 99, completed his century from 159 balls next over but, driving at Currie, he gave wicket-keeper Ben Brown his fifth catch. A first batting point had just been secured by the interval on 262-6.
Hay’s Canterbury teammate back home, Fraser Sheat, out for five, soon brought Abbott’s next success on resumption but Patterson-White, fresh from a not-out hundred in his last innings five days earlier, added 44 with Olly Stone who provided Lumsden with his maiden wicket in finding Brown’s gloves yet again.
The third delivery with the new ball, taken immediately, denied Abbott his five-wicket bag when Dillon Pennington escaped on four. Happily, the South African’s Hampshire career haul still stands at 535 dismissals.
The reprieve was costly: the ninth wicket added another 39 (47 from just seven overs in all) before Pennington fell swiping at Currie who took the running catch at cover off his own bowling as Patterson-White’s skier, with nine men on the boundary, finally ended his carnage.
He had overseen 112 runs from the last three wickets against a wilting attack, though Currie at least had the slightly flattering consolation of four for 61.
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