Nottinghamshire stretched their unbeaten run in the LV= County Championship to seven matches as their rain-interrupted fixture against Warwickshire at Edgbaston finished in a draw.
Rain and bad light had decimated the first three days, leaving little scope for anything other than a points-scoring exercise on the final day.
With James Taylor advancing to 164 and Chris Read making 63, Nottinghamshire’s first innings eventually realised 365 before ending straight after lunch.
They then produced a superb performance with the ball, to bowl out the home side 187 in 46.2 overs to make sure of at least third spot in the table.
The wickets were shared amongst the four seamers, with Jake Ball taking four for 48, Luke Fletcher returned two for 40, Luke Wood grabbed two for 45 and Brett Hutton finished with two for 47.
Although the contest was drawn, it was one of the more satisfying draws, according to Mick Newell.
“There are satisfying draws and that was one of them. It’s been a really good performance to take 12 points out of the match, so we should be very pleased with that," he said.
“The young bowlers have fronted up again and bowled a team out in not all that many overs. We wanted to give ourselves a chance of overhauling Middlesex for second place and we can do that if we win and they don’t, so we’ve given ourselves an opportunity and I can’t ask for any more than that.”
The opening 45 minutes of the day couldn’t have gone much better for Notts as the two not out batsmen profited. Taylor reached 9,000 first class runs as he moved to 147 and then had another chunk of luck as he brought up his 150, with Laurie Evans getting one hand to it in the gully before conceding a run as the ball trickled away from him.
Chris Wright struck in the sixth over of the second new ball, getting two wickets with consecutive deliveries. Read edged behind for 63 and Brett Hutton perished to his first delivery.
Luke Wood saw out the hat-trick ball and then clipped a leg side boundary to get his innings under way. Taylor’s marathon effort ended when he was pinned lbw to give Keith Barker his fifth wicket of the innings, with the score on 307 for eight.
Wood and Luke Fletcher then joined forces in an enterprising stand of more than 50 to take Notts to a fourth batting point and on to 364 for eight at lunch.
Upon the re-start Fletcher took a single from the first delivery, bowled by Jeetan Patel, who promptly bowled Wood for 36 and trapped Jake Ball for nought.
Warwickshire’s openers put on 44 before both were dismissed in quick succession. Varun Chopra went lbw to Brett Hutton for 25 and then Ian Westwood nicked Wood through to Read for 16
Laurie Evans scored 34 before finding the safe hands of Steven Mullaney at slip, giving Fletcher his first Championship wicket of the campaign and also securing a precious bowling point.
Jake Ball celebrated his first Lions’ call-up after tea with three important wickets in fairly quick order. Sam Hain, Tim Ambrose and Jonathan Trott all perished to catches in the slip cordon, two by Riki Wessels and one by Brett Hutton.
The pace man then grabbed his fourth wicket of an extraordinary spell as Keith Barker slashed to point, where James Taylor took a good low catch.
Wood had Rikki Clarke back in the pavilion with another lbw shout as the home side slipped from 103 for two to 153 for eight.
Fletcher had Wright caught behind and it was left to Hutton to close out the innings – and the match – as Patel hoisted to Hales in the deep.
Notts will conclude their programme for the season with a home match against Hampshire, beginning at Trent Bridge on Tuesday 22nd September (10.30am start).