In The Telegraph - Notts Problems Run Deep

Yorkshire sweep away dismal Nottinghamshire and extend run without victory to 24 first-class matches

Notts are one of the richest clubs and attract ambitious players yet succumbed to Duane Olivier and managed only 97 when set a modest target

ByScyld Berry, CHIEF CRICKET WRITER, AT TRENT BRIDGE

• Yorks (264 & 278) beat Notts (355 & 97) by 90 runs 

Nottinghamshire extended their sequence to 24 first-class county matches without a win when, needing 188 to beat Yorkshire, they were swept away for 97.

“It’s obviously very disappointing,” the Notts captain Steven Mullaney said. “It’s not good enough to get bowled out for under 100 on a decent pitch.” It is not good enough either for Notts to have gone so long, since June 2018, without winning a match in either the county championship or this year’s Bob Willis Trophy.

It is not as if Notts are short of money, owing to their Test ground at Trent Bridge. They can afford to sign ambitious players, or players with ambitious agents. Or is that the source of their problem? Every one of their top six batsmen in this game were signed from other counties, yet they were dismissed in fewer than 30 overs.

There was no sign of a team with a core. On a very hot day Notts had 77 overs in which to reach their target - time to wear down Yorkshire’s bowlers? Not a bit of it. Duanne Olivier bowled a demanding spell of ten overs with the new ball to take three wickets, but three more were donated to the medium-pacer Jordan Thompson.

Even more remarkable than the fact that such a well-resourced county has gone 24 first-class games without a win is that Notts have lost 17 of them. Had there been a solid core or some sign of a team ethos, there would surely have been more draws than seven.

One Nottinghamshire batsman has scored runs in this mini-season. But Ben Slater, yet another Notts’ signing, was on loan to Leicestershire when he scored 176 against Lancashire. “Keep things simple” is the philosophy of the Leics head coach Paul Nixon when talking to his batsmen.

There were a couple of extenuating circumstances. Olivier’s first wicket was that of Chris Nash when the new ball might have jagged too much, while Olivier hit Joe Clarke smack on the helmet when he missed a hook. Clarke was out soon afterwards when pushing forward at a ball which might have stopped in the re-used pitch. It had served in Notts’ previous game when Derbyshire, far from buckling in the fourth innings, achieved their record run-chase.

As part of the early collapse that was never stemmed, Haseeb Hameed was caught down the legside off a full ball from Yorkshire’s debutant pace bowler, Dominic Leech, 19. When Hameed represented England in three Tests so brilliantly in India, he looked a boy; now he is a young man, but seems more intent on shouldering arms and leaving the ball outside offstump than hitting it. 

As soon as Hameed was second out, a Yorkshire player shouted “Two more and a panic’s on.” But Notts hardly gave themselves time to panic as Ben Duckett and Mullaney played defensive strokes at balls they could have left. Had the home side kept wickets in hand, they could have pressurised Yorkshire’s offspinner Jack Shutt when the seamers needed respite from the heat: Shutt had been nervous and wayward in Notts’ first innings, but the score in their second was 80 for six when he came on and he cleared up.

Yorkshire now have two wins out of two but are four points behind Derbyshire who top the North group. In the next round of the Bob Willis Trophy, the third of five, the two counties meet at Headingley.