Nottinghamshire v Somerset at Trent Bridge April 13-16

Neil Whitaker reports

Day 3

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE’s Brett Hutton’s best Championship figures of six for 45 guided Nottinghamshire to a first innings lead of  83 against Somerset and by the close they lead by  270 with four wickets left.

Hutton said: “I am pleased with the way the day went for us, we got ourselves  in a good position to win the game.  Stuart Broad and Dane Paterson bowled well and I just built on the pressure that they created and I got the rewards. In cricket it’s never one man you to rely on the others to create pressure, without the pressure the batters feel comfortable.”

After the second  day’s play was washed out play on the third day started on time under overcast conditions which looked ideal for Broad to run through the Somerset order but it was Hutton who took four wickets to add to the two he took on the first day

Hutton got his first wicket of the morning with his fourth ball of the day when Tom Kohler-Cadmore played down the wrong line and was leg before. Lewis Gregory had a big heave-ho at one that swung in from Hutton and lost his middle stump.  Craig Overton pushed forward at the next ball and was trapped leg before to one that came in at him.  Josh Davey survived the hat trick ball but in his next over Hutton squared James Rew up and bowled him.

It was Rew’s morning for getting squared up.  On 11 he was squared up by  Paterson  edged him  but Hutton at third slip couldn’t hold on to the chance as he moved to his left.

Somerset lost their first wicket of the day when Cameron  Bancroft tried to work Paterson to leg and was plumb leg before adding six to his score. In the preceding over Bancroft cut Broad to the point boundary for the first boundary of the day.

After clipping Paterson to the mid wicket boundary Somerset captain Tom  Abell edged a drive off the next ball and Ben  Duckett took a good low catch diving to his right at second slip.

When Somerset lost their eighth wicket at 87 before lunch, members of the crowd were anticipating that the match would be over by the end of today but Somerset fought back first with the bat and then with the ball.

It was Davey who led the fight back and  saved the follow on when he sliced a drive off Broad to the third man boundary.  He top scored with 60  which included two sixes off Lyndon James.  The first over long on and then he clipped James off his legs over square leg.  

He added 31 in seven overs with Jack Leach but the partnership was broken 10 minutes before the scheduled lunch when Leach top edged a pull off James and the ball flew to Steven Mullaney at mid wicket.  Davey and Peter Siddle saw the 10 minutes through and the additional eight overs but guess what in the second over after lunch Davey edged a big drive off Paterson and that man Hutton took a comfortable catch at first slip.

Davey said: “I just tried to be as positive as I could.  It’s never easy being  80 for seven, we got to 170 and have given us a chance of winning the game.  If we can get their bowlers into bowling two or three spells and we bat a long way down you never know. And if we can establish a good partnership we’ve got a good chance.  We’ve not been at our best in the opening games but we/re still in this game and we have an opportunity to win it.”

Trailing by 83 Somerset fought back with good fielding to back up the tight lines of their  bowlers.  Siddle came on as first change after nine overs and struck with his first ball when Duckett clipped him off his legs to Tom  Lammonby at square leg caught it at the second attempt.

Following the departure of Duckett the runs dried up and Siddle thought he got his second whe squared Ben Slater,on one, up,  the slips, keeper and Siddle went up for a catch but umpire David Milnes was unmoved.

Gregory got his eighth wicket of the match when he got rid of Haseeb Hameed when he got a feather on to his pad and Kohler-Cadmore at first slip took a low catch moving to his left.  Umpire Michael Burns was not sure that the ball had carried so he consulted with Milnes and gave Haseeb Hameed out.

Joe Clarke missed a straight ball from Siddle and was leg before.  James nearly got his second first ball duck of the match when he edged Siddle and the ball wouldn’t stick  in Overton’s left hand at third slip. In the end James faced 50 balls in 57 minutes before he chipped Leach’s second ball gently back to the England spinner.

Bancroft took a brilliant one handed catch moving to his right and low down when Slater edged Overton.

Gregory squared Liam Patterson-White up and his outside edge carried to Overton at gully who caught it at the second attempt.

Day 4

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE’s Dane Paterson took five for 46 in Somerset’s second innings including his 500th first class wicket as Nottinghamshire beat Somerset by 165 runs, their first LV+ County Championship victory over Somerset at Trent Bridge since 2014.

Nottinghamshire captain Steven Mullaney said: “Losing the toss here is always going to be tough and I think the Somerset bowlers would admit that they bowled a little bit short in that first session on Thursday and that helped us get off to a good start. But what happened after that showed how quickly things can change. From 125 for none we lost 10 wickets getting the next 125, but we thought in the conditions that 250 was an above par score. It was a great cricket wicket where there was enough in it for the bowlers if they put it in the right areas but if they didn’t bowl well you could capitalise on it and score runs.

It was a game where 30s and 40s were really important. Those kinds of contributions don’t get noticed in the averages but they are sometimes really underestimated and that passage of play last night where myself and Brett Hutton were able to get us towards 200 was really important, because I always thought a target of around 300 would be too much for them.

In Paterson we have a fantastic bowler. He probably didn’t bowl as well as he could today but if there is something in the pitch he will find it. 

Home advantage is going to be important for us. We prepare the wicket in the same way whoever we are playing because we feel it is our best chance of taking 20 wickets, while our batters know the conditions here and we back them to get enough runs to win the game.”

Somerset were already four down when Paterson started to take wickets.  His first victim was Tom Kohler-Cadmore who  feathered the seventh ball after lunch to Joe Clarke keeping wicket instead of  Tom Moores who was unable on the final day after hurting his arm while keeping wicket on the third day.

James Rew top scored for Somerset with 25 but he never looked comfortable and by the time he was out Somerset were on the verge of defeat at 89 for seven.  He was  squared up by Paterson  and  edged it to substitute Calvin Harrison at third slip.  Three balls later Paterson got his 500th First class wicket when Craig  Overton edged him and Harrison took an even better catch, a great low catch diving to his left. Overton stood his ground, the umpires conferred that it was a good catch.  On his way back to the hutch Overton banged the pavilion gate.

In their first innings Jack Leach joined Davey on 87 for eight today they were 89 for eight, could they repeat their first innings partnership?  They tried but in the end they failed.  In the first innings they added 31 today they added five less but after  a few lusty blows from Leach he flat batted  Paterson to Lyndon  James at point.

Peter Siddle was the last man out when he drove Paterson on the full to Mullaney at mid off and Josh Davey was unbeaten on 17. 

Needing 295 to win or survive for 85 overs Somerset needed a good start but they lost  their first wicket in the fourth over when Tom Lammonby was beaten by one that cut back by Hutton, the first of his three wickets.

Broad got one up on Cameron Bancroft for the forthcoming Ashes series when he sent Bancroft’s off stump cartwheeling out of the ground with one that came back in just enough.

Somerset lost their third wicket before lunch when Sean Dickson pushed hard at Broad and got a thick outside edge and Ben Duckett took a good diving to his left in front of Hutton at first slip.

Somerset captain Tom Abell pushed forward to Hutton and the ball thunderd into his pad and was on his way to the hutch.  His dismissal was a mirror image to Lammonby’s dismissal. Lewis Gregory looked comfortable till he groped at one from Hutton that came back and was plumb leg before to give Hutton his ninth wicket of the match.

Abell said: “Nottinghamshire got off to a brilliant start and played extremely well in challenging conditions on the first morning but I think we have to accept that across the three or four days they probably outperformed us with the bat and ball. We were always playing catch-up after the first day.

We didn’t hit our straps soon enough, although I felt the way we fought back on day three, particularly with the ball and in the field, to stay in the game was brilliant from our lads.  But in testing conditions from a batting point of view I don’t think we reacted well enough.

There was pretty considerable movement, although that’s not a bad thing and certainly not an issue. There was quite a bit of movement off the seam and the swing exaggerated it. 

It creates a slightly different game in which as a batting unit you have to find different ways of putting the opposition under pressure rather than just letting them bowl at you. But full credit to their bowlers. They bowled it slightly fuller and asked us questions on the front foot, where we were perhaps a little bit slow to adapt to the right lengths.

We probably didn’t have a huge amount of luck at times in that we beat the bat a lot and there were a few half-chances that we didn’t take, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. 

There were some good things to take from the match in that  Gregory was brilliant with the ball. We also had a few injury issues during the game and the way he put his hand up and led the bowling was a testament to him as a character.

We’ve not started the season well and confidence is such a big part of cricket. You want to get a good win under your belts early doors. The important thing now is that we trust ourselves to bounce back against Lancashire in our next game.”

Nottinghamshire lost an early wicket with the eighth ball of the morning when Mullaney tried to turn Siddle off his legs, got an outside edge and found Gregory at mid off at mid off.  Going for quick runs Broad had a big swing at Gregory to give him his 10th wicket of the match.

The Nottinghamshire innings was wrapped up when Hutton pulled Gregory to Dickson on  the square leg boundary who took the catch above his head to give his third 10th wicket haul in a match.  







  

 SCORECARD

SCORECARD