Leaders Notts beat rain to seal win over Yorkshire

Headingley, Day 4, Rothesay County Championship Division One

Nottinghamshire 228 &amp, 393-8: Clarke 94, Coad 3-64

Yorkshire 159 &amp, 299: Wharton 58, Pennington 5-106

Yorkshire defeated Notts by 163 runs in the match (up 19 points).

Nottinghamshire improved to a fourth win in seven games, this one against Yorkshire at Headingley just before tea on day four, to improve to seventh place in the Division One championship’s top division.

In the third afternoon, Yorkshire’s struggling team had a 463-run lead and came away with a score of 176-5. They also lost four of those wickets in the evening session, including one against Pennington in the day’s final over.

Top-scorer Matthew Revis and George Hill shared a 54-run partnership to help Yorkshire avoid a fourth defeat in seven games, which was a strong start to the fourth day. However, they were in desperate need and were later bowled out for 299 in 121 overs, slipping to a 163-run defeat.

Shortly before the new ball, Freddie McCann’s part-time spin made a breakthrough by bowling Hill with the first ball of a one-over. After lunch, Pennington then defeated Revis for 45 before posting an impressive 5-106 from the previous 31 overs.

Nottinghamshire won 19 points from Yorkshire’s three, placing them halfway through the four-day campaign and well-positioned to win their first Championship since 2010.

They have won only five Championship games at Headingley since 2011 and none of them have come to that conclusion.

In easing batting conditions, Pennington took three of his wickets on Monday, keeping Yorkshire at the bottom of the table.

Revis and Hill, a 26-year veteran of the new England Lions, managed to survive the first 85 minutes of a gloomy and chilly day comfortably.

In his fourth appearance, the former made his season-highest score by playing confidently through the off-side off front foot and back on the cusp of the season’s best score.

You believed success would come, but All Notts had to do was be patient. Even if it initially arrived via the least expected route, it did.

The penultimate over, which was bowled by McCann, was brought into the attack because of his off-spin, which prevented the new ball from being due.

Hill’s eyes lit up as he dragged his first ball down. The delivery scooped through and downrooted the middle stump, giving the score of 230-6.

With the score of 244 and Revis’ return coming seven balls into the afternoon, Pennington forced Revis to fall back to South African Kyle Verreyne.

Dom Bess, Yorkshire’s stand-in captain, received 21 and Ben Coad, the other, for five, respectively.

The game’s outcome was all but certain by that point, with a score of 277-9.

Last pair Jack White and Jordan Thompson fought back for more than an hour and almost 20 overs before putting an end to that theory as light rain started to fall.

However, Verreynne, who caught White first in the innings and ninth in the match, put White in the lead.

Anthony McGrath, Yorkshire’s head coach:

We were always behind after the first day because we didn’t get a reward for our efforts.

Even though we had opportunities, “we just never managed to take that much further and then take any control in the game.” That has been a problem year-round.

“We have to look in ourselves, not just the players, but also the coaches,” he said. We must find some solutions because it’s all about performance, just like we talk and everything else.

Our supporters and followers, who follow us and have a lot of support, don’t care about ifs and buts; they want to see results.

Dillon Pennington, of Nottinghamshire:

We discuss simply doing whatever it takes for the team to win, and I, Mo (Abbas) and Brett (Hutton) all did so.

“It was a little difficult for me to get started in this game, but I felt good.” Despite a few run leaks, I had a good rhythm.

We made an effort to ball in the right places as much as we could without having to think about the weather. It was about stacking and just trusting that we would eventually get the wickets as the pitch improved.