MATCH REPORT: Notts frustrate Lancs to play out tense draw
Nottinghamshire fought a gritty rearguard action to deny Lancashire victory after losing their first six wickets for 55 chasing 295 to win on a dramatic final day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match at Trent Bridge, finishing nine down for 136.
Lancashire had given the home side 67 overs to chase victory after declaring on 329 for eight at lunch on the final day.
After George Balderson, Lancashire’s 22-year-old all-rounder, who had three wickets and 91 runs from the first innings, took three wickets in 11 balls to have them six down, Nottinghamshire looked to be heading for a third defeat in four since their return to Division One.
But after Joe Clarke (42) and seam bowler Brett Hutton combined in a defiant stand spanning 34 overs, Nottinghamshire hung on, losing two more wickets in the remaining 13 overs, the ninth with just four balls remaining, the match ending with Olly Stone blocking a ball from left-arm spinner Tom Hartley with every other Lancashire player clustered round the bat.
England’s Jimmy Anderson, who finished with three for 35, saw off both Clarke and Hutton but the contest concluded with his international strike partner Stuart Broad at the other end, having faced 50 balls for his three not out.
Lancashire’s day began with a continuation of their Saturday evening wobble, which had seen them slip from 203 for one in their second innings to 214 for four in the space of little over half a dozen overs following four and a half hours off the field.
That was against a backdrop of heavy cloud with the floodlights blazing, yet the contrasting conditions of a bright Sunday morning were not enough to arrest the slide as George Bell departed to the second ball of the opening over, caught at second slip as Lyndon James squared him up. Luke Fletcher then produced a beauty to bowl Colin de Grandhomme off stump.
This left Lancashire 231 for six for a lead of 198, vulnerable to handing the initiative to Nottinghamshire, yet it was seized back emphatically by Croft and Hartley as the home attack, which lacked consistency throughout the match, failed to maintain the pressure.
Olly Stone was off the field after tweaking a hamstring on Saturday, and neither Broad nor Hutton could achieve much with either the old ball or the new one. Hartley impressed in making his second first-class fifty, passing that mark with a lofted drive for four off Hutton and celebrating with a hooked six. Croft, who took two painful blows to the body for his trouble, failed on 49 only after an instruction from the dressing room to throw the bat ahead of a lunchtime declaration.
A runs requirement of 4.4 per over with two sessions left did not look too daunting a target for Nottinghamshire, yet it soon became one as Tom Bailey uprooted England opener Ben Duckett’s middle stump for the second time in the match and Anderson had first-innings top-scorer Haseeb Hameed caught behind off a lovely delivery that moved late.
Ben Slater and Matt Montgomery managed to survive the remainder of the strike duo’s opening salvoes, Montgomery’s positive approach yielding some success and raising the hope that he and Slater could put the chase back on track.
Instead, the change of bowling at both ends set off a flurry of wickets, four in five overs.
Balderson, confidence high after his handsome contributions with bat and ball, did much of the damage, taking three wickets for three runs in the space of 11 balls. Slater feathered a thin edge to ‘keeper Bell, who then took his third catch of the innings to remove James via an inside edge on to thigh pad. Home captain Steven Mullaney nudged a catch to first slip.
In the midst of all that, Will Williams threaded one between bat and pad to bowl Montgomery for 30. Nottinghamshire, having been 52 for two, were 55 for six and had it all to do to escape with a draw with still 47 overs remaining.
The situation demanded that Clarke, whose reputation increasingly is that of a destructive top-order batter in short-form franchise cricket, rein in his attacking instincts and lead Nottinghamshire to safety and for two and a half hours he showed that he can still summon the qualities required.
He and Hutton passed the first test by surviving nine overs to tea and with their partnership still intact as the contest entered the last hour, the odds against a Lancashire win had lengthened considerably, with visiting skipper Dane Vilas unable to conjure a breakthrough.
Yet it came with 13 overs left as Anderson returned to the attack. He positioned Croft at leg slip, and in the second over of his new spell fired a ball down leg side that Clarke, seemingly unable to resist, flicked obligingly into Croft’s waiting grasp.
Still, it looked short odds that Nottinghamshire would hold on only for Anderson to produce his second real jaffa of the day to take out Hutton’s middle stump, for a brave 23 spanning 153 minutes and 141 balls.
Another scare came in the final over as Luke Fletcher was leg before to Hartley but Stone saw out the last four deliveries to secure the draw.