A half century from Chris Read helped Nottinghamshire to a first innings score of 242 on the opening day of their Specsavers County Championship match against Lancashire at Old Trafford.
Read won the toss at the start of the day and elected to bat and was last man out as the visitors collected just a single batting point for their efforts. His 52 came from 108 balls, with six fours.
New Zealand’s Neil Wagner, on his county debut for Lancashire, took six for 66 and Kyle Jarvis picked up three of the other wickets to fall as Notts were bowled out in 74.2 overs.
In the time that remained, the home county defended stubbornly before reaching stumps on 25 for one, with Jake Ball taking the only wicket.
Peter Moores, Nottinghamshire’s Coaching Consultant, was previously the Head Coach at Old Trafford and made this assessment of the day.
“It was a good, hard fought day. I think we’d be a little bit disappointed as we got some people in on a good cricket pitch. There’s always something there," said Moores.
“We’d have liked to have got a few more but it was great to see Ready do what Ready does, bat with the tail and Broady and Jake Ball also did a good job to get us up to a score that’s competitive.”
Moores understood the decision to shun the option to bowl first and have a toss.
“It looked a good pitch. I don’t think we’d have been disappointed if we’d have bowled but we thought we’d get use of it. There were good weather conditions, it was bright and credit to the groundsman, it looks a good surface," he added.
“Too many of our players got starts and got out in the morning session. It’s a wicket you’ve got to be patient on. It’s quite slow because of the time of year, so we look back and maybe are a little bit disappointed that we didn’t get through the morning session and be able to build on it, later on in the day.”
Steven Mullaney and Greg Smith put on 72 together in the second innings of last week’s win over Surrey and had made their way to 31 before being parted in this match.
A couple of cover boundaries had taken Mullaney past the 300 first class runs mark for the new campaign but on 19 he unexpectedly feathered one from Kyle Jarvis through to wicketkeeper Alex Davies.
Michael Lumb also played himself in and got a start but on 14 he was given out lbw to Jarvis after the former Zimbabwe international switched to the Pavilion End.
Smith battled his way to 17, having faced 68 deliveries – but then hit uppishly against Wagner and found the hands of Liam Livingstone at point.
Wagner had been impressive in his opening burst, giving nothing away in his first four overs. He then claimed a second victim with a beautiful delivery which came back and crashed into Brendan Taylor’s stumps via an inside edge.
Taylor had got off the mark with one of his trademark ‘up and over the slips’ shots but after reaching three, and after resisting his way through 25 deliveries, he was again undone by a genuinely impressive bit of bowling from Lancashire’s new overseas signing.
Riki Wessels and Samit Patel added 35 either side of lunch but both then fell within the space of four deliveries, each to lbw decisions.
Patel was undone for 11 by one that nipped back from Jarvis and then Wessels departed for 27 to Wagner’s first ball of a new spell.
At that stage Wagner had figures of three for 15 from 8.1 overs but he and the other members of the home attack were then put under pressure by an enterprising stand between Read and Stuart Broad.
Broad went after his shots from the off, to good effect, and was helped on his way by an ambitious shy at the stumps from James Anderson which gifted his England team-mate four overthrows.
The pair took their stand to 74 before Broad departed for 43, bowled attempting a huge hit off Simon Kerrigan.
Ball’s arrival at the crease maintained the tempo and he played a collection of high quality shots, hitting Jarvis for a six over point and then a drive through the covers to bring up the 200.
In the next Jarvis over a short delivery was despatched over midwicket in the direction of the Point, for another mighty maximum.
Wagner picked up the last three wickets to fall, beginning with the dismissal of Ball, who nicked behind for 33 and followed it up by getting Bird the same way, for only one.
Read reached his 50 from 106 balls but then pulled high down to Kerrigan at fine leg, leaving Harry Gurney unbeaten on six.
Lancashire had a maximum of 19 overs to face in the late evening sunshine and lost Karl Brown in the third of them, lbw to Ball for a duck.
It took until the 27th delivery of the innings before the first run arrived but the caution shown by Luke Procter and Haseeb Hameed was justified as they kept their wickets intact until the close.
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