Nottinghamshire 273 & 260 v Warwickshire 201/9 & 333/7 (County Championship Group One)

*Warwickshire win by three wickets

15.04.21 – 18.04.21

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club missed a real opportunity for a long awaited first red ball win since 2018 as they were agonisingly beaten by Warwickshire at Trent Bridge after four days of tense County Championship action.

The hosts hit 273 all out in a first innings that was largely saved by young Liam Patterson-White and a 73 not out after coming in at number eight.

In response Warwickshire were put under the sword by a Notts bowling attack that included Stuart Broad and South African Dane Paterson (with three wickets each) and although Sam Hain top scored with 72, the visitors could only manage 201/9 with an injured Dominic Sibley unable to bat.

Notts second innings went reasonably well until a middle order collapse resulted in losing five wickets for just 23 runs. Haseeb Hameed and Joe Clarke both hit fifties with a plucky 42 from captain Steven Mullaney with the home side setting Warwickshire 332 to win.

It looked a tough ask with the Birmingham based side at one point 34/2 but a brilliant innings by Sam Hain (57), ably assisted by Matt Lamb (50) put the ascendancy with the visitors before three quick wickets by Paterson swung the tie back in Notts favour, that was slowly wrestled back however by a fabulous knock by former England International Tim Bresnan who scored 68 not out with Olly Stone reaching 43 before falling to Stuart Broad late on.

With Warwickshire needing 35 and having three wickets in hand during the final session of the match, it was left to Bresnan and Briggs to see the visitors through to victory by three wickets with little more than half hours play left in the match.

A tough one to take for Notts who came close, who had their chances and who unfortunately couldn’t get over the line. The long awaited victory is surely just around the corner, but that won’t be any consolation to a side beaten when losing going into the final innings of the match, should not really have been an option.

*Main image @TrentBridge Dane Paterson bowled superbly on debut but couldn’t help Notts to win.