Peter Moores hailed Jack Haynes’ maturity after he completed a career-best 157 on day three at Somerset.
The Notts number five’s third century of the season helped his side to post 509 in their first innings, before reducing Somerset to 4/1 in the second innings at stumps, 126 runs behind.
“The day was based around some excellent partnerships,” said Moores.
“There was some quality work by first Ben Slater, and then Jack Haynes was the mainstay today, with some beautiful innings from Ishan [Kishan] and Lyndon James to get us to a significant score.
“Jack has matured as a player. He looked calm at the crease as he played, and it wasn’t easy out there, especially against the spin, so you had to get yourself in.
“But him and Ishan played beautifully after lunch, and for Jack to be able to carry that on and bat nearly all the way through the day was really important.”
Moores was impressed with Notts’ response to Somerset’s 379, having spent 119 overs in the field as the hosts compiled a significant score.
“This is a tough place to come and play,” he said.
“Somerset are a good team, and they’ve played some good cricket in the past few months. They played well in the Championship before they went into the T20s, and then played well in the T20 too.
“I thought we bowled well in the first innings – we stuck to our guns, because it wasn’t easy. I thought [Mohammad] Abbas was outstanding, as was Brett Hutton.
“It was a good effort to keep them to 379, and then we knew we had a good chance if we got past the new ball and built partnerships.
“It’s hard cricket when you’ve got to focus on a score that’s quite a long way off, but I thought the lads dealt with that well, which is a sign of where we’re moving to as a team – becoming a tough team to play against.”
Ben Slater joined Haynes in reaching three figures, scoring 124 at the top of the order for a first century of the summer, having hit six successive fifties in the previous three Championship matches.
“Ben knows he’s in great nick, so he was disappointed to have not turned any of those into a three-figure score,” said Moores.
“We sold our wickets dearly in this innings, and as soon as the ball got old, nobody gave it away.
“Ben was at the heart of that, but our top six or seven have been mainstays all year, which has given us the stability to be able to bowl sides out.”
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