Fresh from striking the winning runs to see Nottinghamshire to a vital win over his old side Worcestershire, Josh Tongue had one overarching emotion.

In a largely low-scoring affair, Nottinghamshire took a slender first-innings advantage of 136 before chasing down a fourth-innings target of 136 to win by three wickets on the final day.

“It’s obviously an amazing feeling to get the lads over the line,” smiled Tongue. “There was obviously a lot of hard work that’s gone into that win.

“[Ben Slater]’s contribution was massive on that sort of pitch, and then obviously [Lyndon James] at the end as well. It’s all added up to an unbelievable team win!”

Tongue, who returned match figures of 7/111 on his first outing back at New Road since making the move to the East Midlands, accepted the game represented a mix of emotions.

However, his focus before and during the encounter was on one clear objective, borne out by his delighted response to securing Notts the points.

“It’s obviously weird coming back to my old ground!” he laughed. “I’ve had some good memories playing for Worcestershire here, but it’s a nice feeling to get one over them!”

Tongue also produced a memorable delivery to dismiss his old teammate Jake Libby, with a short ball rising with extra bounce to catch the glove at head height and loop to second slip.

“It was a good ball!” laughed Tongue. “Obviously, I know Libbs quite well, but I’d said to him a bit before that ‘this is going to be a bumper now’ so he knew it was coming.

“He might have thought I was going to bluff him! But I’ve got one over on him now, so I’m happy about that.”

The 27-year-old was crucial with the bat as well as the ball, carving out an important 24 runs across the match and sharing in the ultimately unbroken stand of 22 with James.

“Having someone like LJ at the bottom end, when he’s very chilled down there, keeps you in the right kind of mindset,” explained Tongue.

He also made special mention to the Green and Golds’ fielding efforts, which saw Haseeb Hameed claim a run out and Freddie McCann hold on to a full-stretch catch in the slips.

“I feel like we’ve worked hard on the fielding side of things, and we always want to hunt down chances, taking run-outs and holding catches,” affirmed Tongue.

“It shows the hard work that we put in during training sessions, and for it to come through to the matches is really good.”

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