Second Eleven Championship
Day 1 of 3
Northants 456-8 dec Notts 67-0

It was perhaps inevitable that a former Notts player should come back to ruin the day for Notts at the picturesque Finedon Dolben ground on the first day of this Championship fixture.

Bilal Shafayat, who after having trials at Sussex & Hampshire has returned to Northamptonshire on a match to match basis, made Notts suffer after being asked to bat first on a dampish wicket by scoring 110.

However Nottinghamshire’s inexperienced attack did not help themselves by bowling either short or to full to take advantage of the pitch conditions.

Notts also had a trialist with a famous name playing for them in left arm seamer Lloyd Alley, grandson of Australian Bill Alley, who when playing for Somerset was the last batsmen to score 3000 runs in a season.

Apart from Shafayat, Rob Newton scored 91 before pulling George Bacon to square leg and David Willey missed out on a century being well caught by Bacon for 80.

In fact Bacon was one of the better bowlers on the day taking 3-54. After a nervous start, 16 year old Academy player Simon Webster ended with 2-68 as Northants called an end to the run feast with eight wickets down.

The pitch had flattened out in the afternoon and Akhil Patel and Sam Kelsall had little trouble in batting out the final sixteen overs of the day leaving Notts still trailing by 389.