Notts wrap up final-day victory over Hampshire

Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Trent Bridge (day four)

Nottinghamshire 377: Clarke 105, Patterson-White 92 & 104: Clarke 37; Lumsden 5-36

Hampshire 304: Lehmann 133*; Pennington 3-60, Stone 3-67, Sheat 3-78 & 123: Currie 44* Mayes 25; Stone 6-28, Pennington 3-33

Nottinghamshire (22 pts) beat Hampshire (4 pts) by 54 runs

Match scorecard

Reigning champions Nottinghamshire kept pace with Somerset and Warwickshire in the County Championship title race by wrapping up victory over Hampshire by 54 runs seven minutes into a delayed lunch.

Their victory, having begun the final day needing four wickets before relegation-threatened Hampshire scored 117 more runs, leaves them four points behind leaders Somerset and one ahead of Warwickshire.

Hampshire had inched forward by just seven before Olly Stone, in the day's sixth full over, pulled out a double-wicket maiden.

Seven balls later, his yorker to new batter Kyle Abbott left the South African palpably LBW and the end beckoned - only for the last pair to survive 20 overs.

A brilliant catch by substitute fielder Ben Martindale at point finally undid last man, the debutant Manny Lumsden for 21, leaving Scott Currie unbeaten on 44.

Stone, with a final 6-28, has claimed 25 wickets at 12.48 apiece in his past four matches, bursting into rampant form at exactly the right time.

He earlier ended impressive resistance from 18-year-old England Under-19 batter Ben Mayes when Kiwi wicketkeeper Mitchell Hay, full length to his right, pulled off an outstanding one-handed catch that would not have carried to slip. With Mayes gone for 25, Eddie Jack departed second ball before Abbott's swift demise.

On a pitch of impressive pace and carry, with the odd one lifting if a divot was found, it was a match relished by fast bowlers – and also by glovemen. Ben Brown's 10 catches in the match equalled the Hampshire record of dismissals behind the stumps, shared with three others, and Hay's introduction to English cricket brought him seven.

A late signing when Kyle Verreynne was one of the South Africans summoned back for early international preparation, Hay 'enjoys' the bizarre, niche distinction of being one of 17 batters in world cricket (Joe Root is another) to have finished on 99 not out in a one-day international. A win on first Championship outing was perhaps less frustrating.

No more than five points have separated the top two in the title race since 18 May and so it remains with Notts trailing Somerset by those four, potentially decisive points, going into the final two rounds.

It is a matter of debate - and weather invariably has a say in autumn - but Notts, who next visit Hove to meet a Sussex side whose home record this season is strong, arguably have the hardest run it.

They finish at home to Yorkshire from 24 September. Somerset for their part are away to Yorkshire before concluding at home to Surrey whilst the third contenders, Warwickshire, play two of the sides - Essex and Leicestershire - in the present bottom three.

For their part Hampshire, permanently lodged in the relegation zone since 27 April, have the formidable task of trying to close a 32-point gap on eighth-placed Essex if they are to evade second division cricket next year for the first summer since 2014.

Realistically this means at least winning one and drawing the other of their remaining matches against Leicestershire at Grace Road and then Sussex at home.

Only Somerset have bettered Hampshire's present run of 11 first-division summers without break in that period (there was no County Championship in 2020): every other side has dropped down for at least one campaign.

They have finished within the top three in four out of the past half-dozen tables but only avoided relegation by one point on the final day last year. It would be some achievement to do so again.

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters' Network supported by Rothesay.