James Taylor rounded off a successful 24-hour period by scoring his second century of the summer on the third day of Nottinghamshire’s LV= County Championship match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.
The 25-year old, who on Tuesday was named in England’s Test squad for the forthcoming series with Pakistan, scored an unbeaten 138 as Notts reached 254 for five.
During his innings Taylor passed 1,000 first class runs for the season, passing the landmark for the fifth time in his career. Also amongst the runs were Chris Read, who was 50 not out when play ended 24 overs early, due to bad light.
Keith Barker was the pick of the Warwickshire attack, taking four of the wickets to fall at a cost of 52 runs.
Overall, Mick Newell was quite pleased with what he’d seen. “The early forecast was for the rain to come early, so to only lose time to bad light is a shame but I’m pleased with what we had before then.”
The director of cricket paid tribute to James Taylor and mentioned the fact that Warwickshire had failed to take a number of chances to dismiss him. “It’s not the batsman’s fault if people keep dropping the ball, I don’t call that good luck, I call it taking the most of your opportunities. I think he’s played a few nice shots in between that but he would recognise that one or two loose shots could have led to his dismissal.”
Newell all but ruled out the possibility of any sort of final day run-chase being agreed between the two captains.
“We want to try and come second so if we can pick up 12 or 13 points from this game then we’ve got a strong chance of getting past Middlesex in the final round of matches.”
Notts had resumed on 16 without loss at the start of the day, with Alex Hales on six and Brendan Taylor unbeaten on eight. As on the previous day, Keith Barker and Chris Wright opened the bowling and it was Barker who made three early inroads to reduce the visitors to 46 for three.
Without adding to his own score Hales flashed at the left-armer and was taken high above his head by Rikki Clarke at second slip.
Steven Mullaney then pushed forward with bat and pad. Initial appeals were undoubtedly for lbw but the ball flew away on the off side and Laurie Evans moved sharply from third slip to take the catch and the umpire ruled that there had been some bat involved and sent him on his way for nought.
Brendan Taylor was given out lbw for 24 against Barker, who then had James Taylor put down in the covers by Sam Hain, when on 22.
James Taylor was also spilled on 30, with Wright grassing the ball at mid on but his disappointment was short-lived because umpire Nick Cook had already called a no-ball against Boyd Rankin. The home side watched on in frustration as the batsman reached his 50 from 67 balls, with nine fours.
Jonathan Trott entered the attack for the traditional final over of the session and accounted for Riki Wessels, who nicked behind to Tim Ambrose for nine.
It took Samit Patel 22 deliveries to get off the mark but he then hit back-to-back boundaries off Wright, the second of which went under the hover cover, causing a delay of more than five minutes.
Patel became Barker’s fourth victim, bowled around his legs for nine, leaving Notts on 130 for five. That was the sole success during the middle session as Taylor and Read dominated.
On 86, Taylor brought up his 1,000 and he had a huge scare after moving to 99. Warwickshire appealed for a caught behind off Trott but umpire Cook was unmoved. Shortly afterwards his 20th career hundred came up, from the same bowler, with the landmark reached in 151 balls, with 15 fours.
The pair extended their sixth wicket partnership into three figures, with the captain reaching his own half century from 104 balls with five boundaries, the ninth time that he has reached 50 in the Championship this season.
In deteriorating light Notts brought up a second batting point before the umpires decided that the conditions were too gloomy to carry on.
Trent Bridge will host England's One-Day Internationals against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 2016. Sign up here to be the first to hear about fixture and ticketing information for these two matches.