Nottinghamshire return to red ball cricket when they face Northamptonshire in the LV= County Championship at Wantage Road.

Notts currently lie in second place in the Division One table, just 5 points behind leaders Yorkshire, with both counties having four matches to play.

Hosts Northants have endured an unsuccessful campaign to this point, losing 9 of their first 11 matches. 

You Need To Know

With Notts playing in a Royal London One Day Cup match the previous evening, the opening day of this 4-day fixture (Friday 15th August 2014) will begin at midday, rather than the usual 11am start time. Normal hours will apply for the rest of the match.

Head To Head

Nottinghamshire have met Northamptonshire on 133 occasions in first class cricket and hold a 52 to 25 winning advantage, with 56 draws.

Northants have hosted the fixture on 67 occasions, at 5 different venues. 57 matches have been played at the county headquarters at Wantage Road in Northampton, 4 matches were played at Kettering, 3 at Wellingborough, 2 at Peterborough and one match was staged at Rushden.

All of the last 8 meetings have been at Northampton but the sides haven’t met since 2007.

Notts lead 22-19 (26 draws) on the road, with their last wins coming in 1992 and 1997.

Last Time

Both Notts and Northants were in Division Two of the County Championship the last time they met at Wantage Road. The match was due to begin on 26th July 2007 but the opening day was lost to the weather.

Northants won the toss, batted and reached 366 with four batsmen (Peters, Sales, Wakeley, van der Wath) all passing 50 without reaching 60.

Mark Ealham (4-43) and Graeme Swann (4-90) were the most successful bowlers for the visitors.

 

 

Centuries from Stephen Fleming (100) and Mark Wagh (152), plus 54 from Samit Patel,  helped Notts into a significant advantage as they totalled 526 all out.

 Northants were put under some early pressure on the final afternoon as AJ Harris picked up three wickets to leave the home side on 18-3 but there were no more alarms as Chris Rogers (58 not out) and Rob White (74 not out) steered the side to safety at 152-3, at which point the captains shook hands on a stalemate.

History

Nottinghamshire created some unwanted history at the end of a quite extraordinary match at Northampton in 1995 - never, in the history of the game, has a side scored as many as 527 runs – and still lost by an innings! 

Tim Robinson’s 209 and 158 from Graeme Archer (the pair added 294 for the second wicket) took Notts to a seemingly invincible position. That was proved incorrect, however, as four centurions saw Northants through to 781-7 declared, their highest-ever total.

Beginning the final day 254 behind, Notts looked to bat through the day for a draw but lost wickets steadily – the final one falling with just 17 deliveries remaining, to lose by an innings and 97.

 

Played For Them Both

Phil Jaques, who played for Notts during the first half of this campaign, spent the 2003 season with Northants. In 16 matches, he scored 1,409 first class runs at an average of 58.70, scoring 5 centuries.

A number of other players, particularly in recent seasons, have turned out for both Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire. Among them are, Usman Afzaal, Nicky Boje, Mark Bowen, Jason Brown, Lance Klusener, Richard Logan, David Lucas, Wayne Noon, Ben Phillips, Bilal Shafayat, Graeme Swann, Riki Wessels and Graeme White.

 

 

Stats (for all first class matches between Notts & Northants)

Highest Team Total

Notts: 547-6 (TB 1951)

Northants: 781-7 dec (Northampton 1995)

Highest Individual Score:

Notts: 230 WW Whysall (TB 1930)

Northants: 276 DJG Sales (Northampton 2000)

Best Bowling:

Notts: 9-50 FCL Matthews (TB 1923)

Northants: 8-53 GE Tribe (TB 1959)

Hat Tricks

Notts: EE Hemmings (TB 1984)

Northants: W Wells (1910 Northampton), RJ Partridge (1946 TB), MR Dilley (TB 1961).

 

Did You Know?

After 20 years of service to Nottinghamshire, William “Dodger” Whysall’s 50th and final century for the county was also his largest. Playing against Northamptonshire, at Trent Bridge in 1930, the 42-year-old opener scored 248, an innings which also took him past 2,000 runs for a fifth consecutive season.

 

Milestones

Chris Read has scored 13946 first class runs and Michael Lumb has hit 9,860.

Ajmal Shahzad has taken 196 first class wickets and Samit Patel has taken 192 purely for Notts.

Patel now has 974 County Championship runs in 2014, just behind Adam Lyth and Chris Rogers in the list of leading run-scorers.

Riki Wessels has scored 887 and is currently 6th on the list, just behind Phil Jaques, another Notts player, who has now returned to Australia.

Wessels has hit more sixes (21) in the First Division this season than any other player, with Alex Hales second (10). 

Tickets

For all information on admission prices and other matchday information please see the official Northamptonshire County Cricket Club website.

Coverage

BBC Radio Nottingham will be providing on-line commentary of all four days, accessible via the BBC Sport website.