Notts edge closer to County Championship title

Trent Bridge, Division One of the Rothesay County Championship (day one)

Warwickshire 258: Barnard 48, Young 48, Hutton 4-46, Abbas 3-33

Nottinghamshire: Yet to bat

Warwickshire 1pt, and Nottinghamshire 3pts

After defeating Warwickshire for 258 on day one at Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire are within 300 runs of winning the County Championship.

After beating defending champions Surrey last week, Notts fulfilled their first requirement by taking all three bowling bonus points, led by Brett Hutton’s 4-46 and Mohammad Abbas’ 3-33, in order to win the title for the first time since 2010.

Surrey only needs two more points in this game to ensure that they are guaranteed of winning the championship because they didn’t take any of the five batting bonus points that might be awarded to them against Hampshire at Southampton.

Even if they lost and get defeated by Surrey, they will still be awarded the title if they can score anything above 300 with the bat in their first innings within 110 overs.

If Dan Mousley hadn’t defied the difficult batting conditions by scoring 74 to help Warwickshire’s recovery from 127-5, they might have been on the field already in search of those runs.

Ed Barnard and Will Young, who had a 117-run sixth-wicket partnership, made exactly the same 48 deliveries as Mousley did with Will Young earlier.

In a position where it would have been more difficult than 70-1, Nottinghamshire presumably would have preferred to send Warwickshire to lunch after choosing to bowl first.

Only Alex Davies, who was leg before the 10th ball of the match, was lost as a result of a wholly unforecast stoppage due to rain, who had just started the opening session.

Abbas, who is now back from a minor back issue, bowled seven overs that could have taken two or three wickets on a different day. Young and Rob Yates repeatedly played and missed other deliveries before scoring.

Another early wicket, Yates well held at second slip by Freddie McCann in Abbas’s second over, was delayed by 50 minutes due to more rain.

Although the sky cleared, Young’s patience and some nifty footwork remained a challenge.

He was about to reach half-century against his former county when he saved himself on 35 by saving the ball away from the stumps with the help of Dillon Pennington’s delivery, but he unexpectedly waved at a ball from Hutton outside off stump and paid the price.

A first bowling point for Nottinghamshire was enthusiastically lauded by the home crowd, who had already been defeated by Hampshire for just 147.

In a subsequent over, Sam Hain and Zen Malik were caught behind from a late ball by Lyndon James that moved to the edge of his defensive bat, which came two more wickets before tea.

Mousley and Barnard fought back in the middle session, which ended up being Nottinghamshire’s property, and he became more confident and aggressive as the partnership expanded, accelerating to a half-century from 62 balls, which he celebrated by dropping James back down the pitch for six.

However, with only one more half-hour left, left-arm spinner Liam Patterson-White claiming the second bowling point with a caught-and-bowled to remove Barnard, before Abbas, who bowled quickly and straight with a second new ball in hand, dismissed Michael Booth and Ethan Bamber in consecutive deliveries.

Hutton put the finishing touches on Tazeem Ali by bowling Tazeem Ali, before Mousley hurried off, leaving Nottinghamshire within striking distance of the prize.