Warwickshire Bears Vitality T20 Blast Crossover Match at Trent Bridge Win 4 pts Report

 

06/06

OUTLAWS EDGE OUT BEARS IN NERVY LOW SCORER

Notts won their second T20 game in five days narrowly beating Warwickshire by three wickets with a ball to spare.

On a cool cloudy night at Trent Bridge, Notts won the toss and elected to bowl in front of a disappointing crowd of around 4,000. The pitch was being used for a third time and proved tricky to bat on - low and slow and taking some turn. It was though the type of pitch that Notts have a much better chance of winning on. Put their batting line-up and flaky T20 flaky seam attack on a flat deck and more often than not, they would be well beaten. 

Patterson-White replaced Pocklington in the Eleven. The visitors without a win in the competition were without Notts' nemesis Sam Hain.

Malik, appearing in his second T20 match, straight drove Pennington (Pavilion End) for four; six off the first over. Stone conceded two off the second over. Malik streakily edged Ali for four to fine leg. Yates then pulled him to the square leg ropes; 13 off the third over including a leg bye. Malik hit Stone for four through mid-wicket. Yates then hit him for four through long leg and a six over backward square leg; 17 plus a leg bye off the 4th over. Malik hit Linde for six over square leg; 10 off the 5th over. Yates (23) hit Ali to the fine leg ropes but Ali had his revenge having him caught by Haynes on the point boundary. Bears  54 for 1 after 6 overs. Warwickshire were to lose 10 wickets for 85 in 14 overs on the very low well-worn surface.

Six balls later, Malik (29) was caught at short third man by Ali off Linde (58 for 2); five off the 7th over. Mousley (1) attempting a reverse sweep was lbw to McCann (1 0 3 1) who was given a solitary over; 60 for 3. Three off the 8th over. Patterson-White conceded three and a leg bye off the 9th over. Linde conceded two including a leg bye. Warwickshire 68 for 3 off 10 overs had scored 14 runs in four overs with the spinners proving hard to get away.

Clarke strangely then turned to Howell. Webster hit him for six over square leg. Barnard (3), attempting a paddle sweep edged to Moores who was standing up to Howell (75 for 4); 11 off the 11th over. Webster and Smith added 23 in four overs.

Patterson-White went for four in the 12th over. Smith hit Linde (4 0 22 1) for four through point, seven off the 13th over. Webster guided Patterson-White (3 0 14 0) for four through wide third man; seven off the 14th over.

Webster (23), walking across his stumps, lost his leg peg to Pennington; 98 for 5. Four off the 15th over. Davies (4) was lbw to Howell (2-0-15-2); 105 for 6 in the 16th over. Pennington failed to perform a routine stop at long leg, four to Smith off Ali, eight off the 17th over including a leg bye. Smith hit Pennington for six over backward square leg. Thompson was comprehensively bowled via a yorker from Pennington (120 for 7). Woakes hit Pennington (3-0-26-2) for four and six through backward point off successive balls; 17 off the 18th over. Ali (4 0 27 3), took 2 for 3 in the penultimate over bowling Woakes (10) middle stump with a slower ball (131 for 8) and four balls later bowling a perfect yorker to  Gleeson (1) – hitting the base of his stumps; 133 for 9 off 19 overs. Stone returned and Smith, who scored a T20 best, hit him for a massive six over mid-wicket. Top scorer Smith (34) was caught by McCann on the wide long on ropes off Stone (2.3 0 25 1). Warwickshire 139 all out off 19.3 overs. A below par total. The Notts spin trio with combined figures of 8-0-39-2. Ali though the most impressive bowler. Well done to Paul Franks in spotting his potential.

Clarke hit consecutive boundaries off Woakes, 11 off the first over. Gleeson went for five in the second over. Clarke (14) was caught behind by Davies diving to his right off Woakes (16 for 1). Clarke 56 runs @11.20 in the 2026 Blast.

The impressive Munsey smashed Woakes (2-0-17-1) for four through the covers, six off the third over. Haynes glanced Gleeson for four through long leg, six plus a leg bye off the 4th over. Haynes hit Thompson for six over mid-wicket and a straight driven four. The last ball was hit by Munsey for a straight six; 20 off the 5th over. Thompson did not bowl again. Haynes hit Mousley for four through extra cover to bring up the 50. Haynes launched Mousley for successive sixes over long on; 18 off the 6th over. Notts 67 for 1 off six overs seemingly cruising to victory – only requiring 73 off 14 overs @5.21 RPO.

Notts though made a pig's ears of things. The quirky Pakistani T20 international Usman Tariq conceded two off the 7th over. With a four-step run-up he momentarily stops at the crease and bowls what only described as a side winder.  Part-time off spinner Rob Yates had T20 career figures of 10-0-79-1 during his previous 45 T20 appearances. Notts though got the jitters against him as he took 4-6 in 13 deliveries!

His first wicket was top scorer Jack Haynes (36 off 17 balls, 3x3, 3x6) who was caught at long off by Mousley (72 for 2) – a wicket thrown away. Three off the 8th over. Munsey switch hit Webster for four through point; 7^th off the ninth over. Moores (1), attempting to hit the Yates to point, lost his off stump to a delivery that kept low;  80 for 3 in the 10th over.

Howell (2) skied Aussie international Webster, bowling spin, straight to Woakes on the square leg ropes, another dreadful shot; 83 for 4. Four off the 11th over. Next over Yates, took two caught and bowls in three balls. McCann (2) was brilliantly caught low down to his right (86 for 5) and two balls later Munsey (27) was easily caught just off the ground with Yates not having to move. Notts 87 for 6 in the 12th over had incredibly lost 5 for 15 in 4 overs of complete madcap batting. Linde with six first-class tons to his name was joined at the crease by Patterson-White and they added 31 in 3.4 overs to calm the nerves.

Tariq conceded four off the 13th over. Linde hit Yates (4 0 22 4) for four through backward point and then Patterson-White hit him for six over square leg into the Fox Road, 14 off Yates’ final over. Patterson-White hit Webster (3-0-18-1) for four through extra cover. Barnard dropped Patterson-White on 15 at extra cover off Webster, seven off the 15th over. Patterson-White (20) hit Tariq for four through extra cover. Patterson-White was then bowled by Tariq via a slinging delivery bowled wide of the crease (118 for 7). Eight off the 16th over – 18 required off four overs. 

Linde hit Gleeson for four through point – five plus a leg bye off over 17. Mousley (2-0-26-0) bowled the 18th over, Linde hitting him for six over long on – eight off the over. Notts only needed five off the last two overs. However Tariq (4-0-16-1) only conceded two singles off the penultimate over. Gleeson (3.5-0-22-0) bowled the last over with Linde facing. The first ball was a dot ball then Linde ran a single. Stone tied the scores with a single off the third ball. The fourth ball was a dot ball to Linde. The fifth ball was a wide yorker, that Linde (29* off 25 balls, 3x4, 1x6) thick edged to the third man ropes. A nervy Notts 143-7 off 19.5 overs (Stone 5*) had finally got home in a low scoring nail biter – the Bears having bowled 13 overs of spin. Notts join four teams on eight points in the Northern Group standings and they now stand fourth in the ladder. Next up, a very winnable home game against Derbyshire tomorrow. The challenge though is how Notts cope in the four games away from home.  MAG

It appears these random matches against teams from other groups are called/being dubbed "crossover" games. Their purpose is just the placate counties that rely on home match income from the Blast whilst enabling the ECB to cut the number of matches overall by two matches, to ease conjestion brought about by their unwanted Franchise competition and to shut the PCA up for a year or so.

One aim to rid the occurence of back to back matches, has already been quashed by the ECB's lords and masters, Sky who against the grain showed interest in airing a couple of games during their black hole between domestic football winding down and the World Cup kicking off.

The result of these crossover games will introduce an element of imbalance and inequalities to league tables, teams in each group having played different counties from the rest of their group but least Notts will get to play Kent later, one county we've only played once in this format. Warwickshire on the other hand...

04/06

Liam Patterson-White has finished his stint with the Lions, so persumably available for selection by the Outlaws against the Central and West Group Bears in the first of the random out of group pairings.

Announced Squad

Joe Clarke

George Munsey

Freddie McCann

Jack Haynes

Tom Moores

George Linde

Benny Howell

Joe Pocklington

Farhan Ahmed

Dillon Pennington

Mohammad Ali

Ben Martindale

James Hayes

Olly Stone

Liam Patterson-White