Tag: Nottinghamshire v Warwickshire

Nottinghamshire County Champions

Nottinghamshire sealing the County Championship in style, a game at Southampton that has become very interesting and some details about the relegation scrap. Also a photo gallery.

Nottinghamshire are officially confirmed as county champions. This post looks at just what is going on.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE v WARIWCKSHIRE

Officially the title was sealed beyond dispute when Nottinghamshire passed 300 inside 110 overs against Warwickshire yesterday. I was at work and missed the moment, but I heard the clip of Dave Bracegirdle’s commentary. It is a great triumph for Haseeb Hameed as captain, and he has been excellent this season both in that capacity, where his decision making has attracted considerable admiration from many commentators, and in his role as opening batter where has contributed four centuries to the cause. Head coach Peter Moores, who has now overseen triumphs at three separate counties, and bowling coach Kevin Shine, who has been namechecked by a number of his grateful charges, also deserve credit. From reaching that 300 Nottinghamshire went on to 374, a first innings lead of 116. They then bowled Warwickshire out for 133 in their second innings (last night they started superbly, reducing Warwickshire to 7-3, with both openers and night watcher Ethan Bamber back in the hutch, and they clearly did not let up today). They completed the job without the loss of a wicket, and it was Hameed who set the seal on their season with a boundary to bring up the winning runs. Scorecard here. There had been a good moment at the start of the Warwickshire second innings when their opener Alex Davies, who overlapped with Hameed in their Lancashire days made a point of removing one batting glove and walking over to shake Hameed’s hand to congratulate him on his success. Nottinghamshire as of now have 225 points, their over rate has not been bad enough to be punished, and the Trent Bridge pitch will not be docked points either, so they will be champions by a big margin. Exactly how big will be decided at Southampton…

HAMPSHIRE v SURREY

Hampshire have largely had the better of this match, with Surrey weakened by a combination of the ECB and the illness which has temporarily deprived them of Jordan Clark. However 17 year old Ralphie Albert on his first class debut scored a fighting 63 to help Surrey to 281 in their second innings, leaving Hampshire to score 181 to win. At 61-0 it was looking comfortable, but then things started to happen. By the tea interval Hampshire were six wickets down, four to Indian leg spinner Rahul Chahar and two to part time off spinner Dan Lawrence. Since the interval Chahar has been donated his fifth scalp of the innings, that of his compatriot Washington Sundar who played a wild drive, edged and was well taken at slip by Rory Burns. Hampshire as I type are 118-7 needing 63 to win. The eyes of Durham (especially them given the situation at Headingley and in the table) and Yorkshire will be on this – if the collapse continues and Surrey win the two northern counties will merely need a draw for both of them to stay up and Hampshire to go down, while a win for Hampshire would mean that Durham would have to engineer a win to stay up, sending Yorkshire down. Scott Currie has just fallen LBW, giving Chahar his sixth scalp and making it 121-8, 60 still needed.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign-off…

This Painted Lady was a candidate for the feature image at the time I photographed it (yesterday morning)…
…it was displaced in the pecking order by this remarkable insect find (yesterday early evening on the walk home from QEH, where I had chosen to get off the bus back from Fakenham)
This annoyed me, as I had to walk round behind it (and the cab was empty, so in any meaningful sense of the word it was parked) due to the road being too busy and dangerous to walk round the front.
A red bodied cranefly on a green leaf (three pictures)
A less spectacular crane fly standing out strongly from the white wall against which it was resting.

Nottinghamshire’s Grip on the County Championship Strengthens

A look at developments on day one of the final round of fixtures in the 2025 County Championship and a photo gallery.

Today is the opening day of the last round of matches in the 2025 county championship. Surrey are playing at Southampton against relegation threatened Hampshire (it has finally been confirmed with one match to play that they system will not be changing next year, so promotion and relegation will be happening), while Nottinghamshire are at home to Warwickshire. Nottinghamshire started the day needing 11 points from their match to make certain of the title (as I make clear in this post they should already be safe). This post looks at what has happened so far.

AT SOUTHAMPTON

Surrey won the toss, chose to bat and batted horribly. They lost wickets early, and never really stopped the rot, ending up all out for a miserable 147, 103 runs short of even a first batting bonus point, thereby reducing the ask for Nottinghamshire from 11 points to six. Hampshire’s reply to date has been a microcosm of their season with the bat – all of the top three got in, and all got out when seemingly well set. Only Ali Orr, who fell to a catch down the leg side by Foakes deserves even a hint of sympathy – both Nick Gubbins and Fletcha Middleton played poor shots, giving part time spinner Dan Lawrence their wickets. Surrey’s awful effort with the bat means that Hampshire are still in control, currently 120-3 in reply to that measly 147 by Surrey. Surrey, with a number of players unavailable by order of the ECB gave a first class debut to 17 year old Ralphie Albert, one of whose grandfathers, snooker legend Jimmy White, knew a thing or two about scores of 147. Ralphie Albert, apparently no relation of Hampshire’s Toby Albert, bats right handed and bowls left arm orthodox spin.

AT NOTTINGHAM

Nottinghamshire started well, and soon had their first bowling point on the board. At 127-5 it looked like a second was on the cards with Surrey missing out on any batting points. However, two all rounders, Ed Barnard and Dan Mousley have baulked Nottinghamshire since then, putting on an unbroken 83. Thus Nottinghamshire still need five more points to win, and the overs situation, seemingly totally irrelevant when the fifth wicket fell, is now just appearing on the horizon – Nottinghamshire have 39 overs left to get the four wickets that would give them a full haul of bowling points, which is still favourable to them, but means that it is not impossible that they will be denied. However whatever happens in the rest of the Warwickshire innings Nottinghamshire will go into bat with their destiny in their own hands, and a chance to settle it in that innings.

PHOTOGRAPHS

A malfunctioning memory card that could only be saved by reformatting it cost me a lot of pictures, but fortune favoured me thereafter and I do have a proper gallery to share…

I was passing through St Peter’s Garden outside the church of St Peter and St Paul, Fakenham when someone spotted the camera and kindly told me about a Peregrine Falcon that was currently eating a pigeon on the far side of the garden. This picture and the next two resulted.