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Trent Bridge clash ends in stalemate
A half-century from bat of Tom Abell was key as Somerset secured the draw that had seemed inevitable for much of their Rothesay County Championship visit to Trent Bridge.
In the context of the race for the title, the result leaves Surrey, who won at Durham earlier in the week, with a nine-point advantage over Nottinghamshire at the top of Division One as they seek a fourth consecutive title, although they still have to meet Haseeb Hameed’s side at The Kia Oval next month.
Nottinghamshire were all out for 544 in their first innings – 208 of those runs scored by Hameed – after their last four wickets fell in the first 40 minutes of the final morning as former Nottinghamshire seamer Jake Ball finished with three for 76 on his return to Trent Bridge.
It left Somerset, who began this match in third place, with a deficit of 106 and a potential 85 overs minimum remaining in the match, but after former skipper Abell and Tom Banton (43 not out) had shared a vital partnership of 87 for the fifth wicket under some pressure, they were 94 in front at 200 for five when the players on the field shook hands on a draw shortly after 4.50pm.
Though a draw had looked the likeliest result after the slow progress of the opening three days, there were some moments of jeopardy for Somerset to survive, mostly induced by the leg spin of Calvin Harrison, who finished with three for 57.
When Harrison, bowling his leg breaks into the rough outside off-stump, dismissed the left-handers Tom Lammonby and James Rew in quick succession early in the afternoon, Somerset were four down and still in arrears.
But Abell and Banton guided them out of trouble to the extent that they were 84 ahead by the time Harrison had Abell caught behind for 51 with time running out for Nottinghamshire to take the remaining wickets and chase even a modest target.
Given the amount of time that lay ahead of them at the end of the Nottinghamshire first innings, a flurry of early wickets might have set Somerset nerves jangling.
They lost two in the space of three balls after Josh Davey and Lewis Gregory had shared 32 for the first wicket, but in the event they had reduced their arrears to 34 in the 15 overs they faced in what remained of the opening session, going to lunch looking comfortable.
Davey was well caught at second slip off Dillon Pennington, with Gregory smartly taken off an inside edge by wicketkeeper Joe Clarke as he drove at Mohammad Abbas.
As Lammonby and Rew went about their business, adding 68 at a run a ball, the visitors were looking increasingly secure.
But it became a different story as the fourth-day pitch began to offer help to the slow bowlers, Harrison bowling Lammonby before finding bounce and turn to have Rew caught at short leg.
Earlier, Nottinghamshire’s plan to add substantially and quickly to their overnight lead of 73 unravelled rather swiftly, in contrast with the slow pace of developments over the first three days as the Kookaburra ball combined with an unresponsive pitch to produce somewhat stiltifying cricket. For all that Hameed (208), Rew (166) and Abell (156) had excelled with the bat in the first innings, it had been largely uninspiring fare.
Liam Patterson-White was the batter most likely to impose himself on a Somerset attack weary and frustrated from 151 overs in the field – all of them using only one ball after Gregory stuck with the original through the whole innings. But he had added only a single to his overnight 47 before chipping Ball to midwicket.
Harrison, keen to make the most of his first innings of the season in a red-ball match for Nottinghamshire, made 31 from 34 deliveries but Brett Hutton fell first ball, caught and bowled by Davey, Ball cleaned up Dillon Pennington and Harrison departed in similar fashion to Patterson-White before him.
Somerset take 12 points from the match with Notts claiming 13.
