A thrilling finish seems likely at Trent Bridge as Nottinghamshire closed on 124-3 in their second innings, needing a further 176 to beat Warwickshire.
In a day full of twists and turns, showing the LV= county championship at its best, 17 wickets fell as the two sides traded momentum, leaving all results still possible.
The home side’s first innings closed on 116, having avoiding the follow-on but conceding a deficit of 147 – but they responded by bowling out the Bears for 152, with Peter Siddle and Harry Gurney each bagging three wickets.
"If we can be positive and look to score runs I think we can have a real show in this game.” Phil Jaques
Notts pursuit of 300 was helped by a punchy innings of 64 from Phil Jaques, his highest score so far for his new county. “It’s been a frustrating start to the season personally,” he said. “But I’ve just tried to be positive and stick to my guns. I tried to be as pro-active as possibly today on a tough wicket.”
Jaques fell to the final ball of the penultimate over of the day, not the greatest time for anyone to get out.
“With the nightwatchman in, he was probably going to play out the last over so it was disappointing to get out when I did with just that one ball remaining.
“We thought we’d try and be positive and make sure we moved forward and back, not get stuck in the crease as soon of their players had done. It’s a tough wicket to bat on but it’s not a minefield.”
So where would the Australian put his dollar if he to put a wager on the outcome? “It’s probably evenly poised right now,” he said. “The first half hour to an hour it will be important in the morning, we need to get a couple of guys set and maybe get a couple of partnerships going. If we can be positive and look to score runs I think we can have a real show in this game.”
Resuming from their overnight position of 43-6 Notts added 72 in almost 16 overs through their seventh wicket pairing of Samit Patel and Chris Read before Warwickshire struck again in the dry morning conditions.
Once the initial breakthrough of the day had been made, however, the remaining wickets followed in dramatic fashion.
Patel (54) had gone past his half century (88 balls 5x4), playing an array of fine attacking strokes. Perhaps going after one expansive shot too many he paid the price, looping Oliver Hannon-Dalby up high on the offside where Ian Bell took a well-judged running catch.
The following over, the 38th of the innings, produced three wickets for Chris Woakes. Read (27) flicked at a legside delivery and was taken by ‘keeper Tim Ambrose, Andy Carter (0) perished to a second ball lbw and Harry Gurney (0) also went second ball (ct Bell), having been dropped from his first.
When Varun Chopra (0) then clipped Peter Siddle through to Read, at the start of the Bears second innings, five wickets had fallen in the space of ten deliveries for only one run.
Either side of lunch Siddle, from the Pavilion End, showed the Members his full repertoire with a series of nigh-unplayable deliveries.
His reward duly came with a second wicket when Laurie Evans (24) involuntarily guided into the hands of Michael Lumb at gully.
The only hope for the Robin Hood county was to make further inroads into the Bears middle order and try and minimise their advantage. Swiftly sending Ian Bell (5) back to the dressing rooms was a positive start, with Read throwing himself a long way to his right to take an edge off Gurney.
Wickets had tended to fall in clusters throughout the match and continued to do so as Siddle then had Porterfield (22) smartly taken by Patel before Gurney had Ateeq Javid (0) caught behind to complete a pair.
Luke Fletcher produced a ball that spat off a length to Woakes (9) and flew off the bat handle to Mullaney at second slip.
The wicket-taking roller-coaster returned as Carter and Fletcher then made further inroads to close out the innings. It was seven down as Carter had Ambrose (29) lbw and his bowling partner then had Barker (19) taken behind.
Carter fired one into Wright’s (0) pads and Gurney closed the innings as Jeetan Patel (20) picked out Fletcher at mid on.
Mullaney (15) was an early casualty when the run-chase began, nicking Barker to Bell at slip but the largest stand of the match so far then swung the game towards Notts.
Jaques (64) and Lumb (40) added 92 together for the second wicket and got within 2.3 overs of the close before they were parted.
Lumb, going back to Patel, was given out lbw, to raise the spirits of the fielding side but more drama was to follow, as Luke Fletcher made his way out to the middle to again perform the duty of nightwatchman, 24 hours after his calamitous mix-up with Samit Patel.
Jaques, who had pulled Oliver Hannon-Dalby for an elegant six, got a real snorter of a delivery from Wright and couldn’t do anything but get a scratch on the ball as it flew through to Ambrose.
Warwickshire left the field on a high with their two late scalps but Fletcher, Taylor, Patel, Wessels and co may have other ideas in the morning.