Warwickshire go top despite Verreynne century

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

Warwickshire 459

Nottinghamshire 279 & 537-7 dec (f/o): Hameed 115, Verreynne 115, Duckett 93, Clarke 82; Webster 2-55

Notts (11 pts) draw with Warwickshire (16 pts)

Match scorecard

Champions Nottinghamshire built on their third-day fightback to ensure that one of this year's potential title rivals left Trent Bridge with no more than a draw as Warwickshire's bid to force a win on the final day came to nothing.

South Africa Test wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne made 115 and Joe Clarke 82 as Nottinghamshire, following on, racked up 537-7 in the second innings of their County Championship clash before the captains agreed to call it a day.

The fifth-wicket pair added 180 in the largest of three century partnerships in the innings.

Clarke, who made 94 in the first innings, swelled his personal tally for the season to 449 as the leading run-scorer in the competition.

Notts had been 310-4 overnight, leading by 130. Warwickshire had created a potential opportunity for themselves by taking three wickets in the last hour of Sunday's play. To turn that into a win, though, they needed realistically to make similar inroads on the final morning. Verreynne and Clarke denied them any.

Haseeb Hameed (116) and Ben Duckett (93) gave the second innings strong foundations with a 150-run partnership for the second wicket on Sunday, but both fell before the close, giving Warwickshire's bowlers fresh impetus for the final day.

With a ball that was only seven overs old on the resumption, there were promising early signs for the visitors as Ethan Bamber forced an inside edge by Verreynne that did not miss the stumps by much and Chris Woakes made a confident appeal for leg before against the same batter, which probably failed only on height.

Yet as the session developed, Verreynne and Clarke looked increasingly secure. The lead had grown to 232 by lunch, at which point the partnership was worth 126 and both protagonists had half-centuries under their belts.

There was much to commend about the commitment of all six Warwickshire seamers in trying to make something happen but Clarke and Verreynne seldom allowed their concentration to waver, which was particularly important when the sunshine of the morning gave way to cloud cover for a period after lunch.

Bears captain Ed Barnard eventually looked to his spinners to carry the workload, with versatile Australia Test seamer Beau Webster eventually lending his off-breaks to the cause.

Yet apart from fellow off-spinner Rob Yates cashing in as Clarke's patience finally cracked at three minutes to three, no gains were made until after tea, by which time Webster's dismissal of Verreynne, bowled sweeping after hitting 10 fours in a 283-minute vigil, and an excellent slip catch by Barnard to remove Liam Patterson-White (five) were inconsequential.

After the formality of a Notts declaration, handshakes were exchanged at ten to five.

Report by ECB Reporters' Network, supported by Rothesay.

Nottinghamshire captain Haseeb Hameed:

"At times, through the course of a season, you find yourself a little bit on the back foot and we certainly found ourselves on the back foot going into day three.

"We needed to respond. I guess when you're not able to win the game, you have to find a way of not losing. I think we needed to win six sessions out of six really to have any chance of doing that, and being able to do that is pleasing.

"There are things we need to do better, of course. And I guess that's exciting as well in a way, because we don't feel like we've played a full game of cricket, so to say, so far as a group. But we still sit towards the top end of the table.

"We know we've got improvements to make. We've not been perfect by any means, but we've got an opportunity to improve on that come Friday, in our next game."

Warwickshire head coach Ian Westwood:

"Enforcing the follow-on was the only way we were going to get a result. It was a great effort to bowl them out in the first innings from 220-4 but we knew on a flat pitch we weren't going to blitz through them again.

"We had no idea really how many we would have to set them to give ourselves a chance to get the win if we'd batted again. We didn't do it, but we can't fault anybody's efforts. We've got some tired bodies in the dressing room after a phenomenal effort in the field.

"There is belief in our dressing room and we've started the season well, two maximum point draws which we had the better of, a tight win and a loss in which we had opportunities. And we've come to the home of the champions and made them follow on, which is a feather in our cap.

"We needed early wickets to really bring the game to life. But credit to them, they are champions for a reason and they knuckled down, put big value on their wickets and made it really hard for us."