Lancs take upper hand on Day Two at Trent Bridge
Nottinghamshire’s Haseeb Hameed fell three runs short of a first century of the season before Lancashire took the upper hand on a rain-affected second day of their LV= Insurance County Championship clash at Trent Bridge.
England strike bowlers James Anderson and Stuart Broad both finished the day wicketless as Lancashire overturned a first-innings deficit of 35 to lead by 63 runs with nine second-innings wickets in hand.
Haseeb, who captained England Lions during the winter after hitting more than 1,200 first-class runs in 2022, missed out when he was leg before wicket to Will Williams on 97, although it was thanks to his measured five-hour innings that Nottinghamshire, who had been 119 for five overnight, more than doubled their score to be 249 all out.
While Anderson finished 0-49 from 13 overs, three Lancashire bowlers took three wickets each as Will Williams, Tom Bailey and George Balderson shared the honours, Bailey the most impressive but a miserly Williams bowling 10 maidens as he finished 3-31 from 17.4 overs.
Lancashire’s wish for an early breakthrough was achieved after Nottinghamshire had begun the day five down and still 95 behind the visitors’ first-innings score. Steven Mullaney, who was only a few short of 1,000 first class runs last season, looked key to his side wiping out the deficit but fell to the 18th delivery of the first session, mistiming a ball from Williams to give an easy catch to mid-on.
It left responsibility squarely on the shoulders of Hameed at 125 for six but the 26-year old opener was quite unfazed, even when Brett Hutton, squared up by a ball from Bailey, edged behind for seven. He emerged unscathed from an interesting battle with Anderson, who generally bowled better than he had on the first evening, beating the bat several times.
In the event, Olly Stone played some nice shots in his 22 before nicking a good ball from Balderson to be caught behind and three boundaries by Broad off the same bowler took Nottinghamshire ahead of Lancashire’s total on 218 for eight at lunch, with Hameed on 95.
After almost five hours at the crease, a century against his former teammates looked there for the taking only for Williams to strike Hameed’s front pad and hear his lbw appeal upheld, the opener’s frustration at missing out plain to see as he threw his head back and turned towards the pavilion.
Williams claimed his third when Broad swished at one on the leg side but though Nottinghamshire missed out on a batting point the last four wickets had added 124 runs, which Lancashire would see as too expensive in the circumstances.
Nonetheless, it was Lancashire who ended the day on top, thanks to a second-wicket partnership between Balderson and Josh Bohannon so far worth 83.
Nottinghamshire’s all-seam attack struck an early blow when Luke Fletcher removed Luke Wells in the eighth over via a catch behind, but as in the first innings, Broad, Olly Stone and Brett Hutton to a degree were guilty of giving away too many scoring opportunities.
It did not help that, having been impressive in the field on day one, Nottinghamshire failed to take two chances to dismiss Balderson, who was put down by Ben Duckett at second slip off Hutton on four and by Hutton at first slip off Stone on 32.
Balderson survived to be 44 at tea, with no further play possible afterwards due to heavy rain, with 32 overs lost from the day’s schedule.
Report by ECB Reporters Network.
