In the Trent Bridge stands 2,387 hardy souls sat, mostly scattered around the white seats in twos or singles, dark pegs in a game of mastermind. Well before 10am they had breakfasted and were circulating the ground with flask and blanket, the long-learned behaviour of the most loyal of fans. They must be loyal, no Championship season has started earlier.
In the absence of Surrey, currently lording it against MCCU, Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire was the most appetising game of the round. Notts, who only just avoided relegation last season, have been on a shopping spree, bolstering their batting and bowling with some of the best young players around. Such is their current glut that the seam bowlers Mark Footitt and Luke Wood have been temporarily sent away on loan.
But it was Joe Clarke, who moved from Worcestershire and was batting as the sun squeezed meekly out in late afternoon, who most caught the eye. On his Championship debut for Notts he made a charming and unbeaten 109 – his 14th first-class century at the age of 22.
Clarke has had a turbulent six months away from the game. He was called to give evidence in his ex-teammate Alex Hepburn’s rape trial, and was then dropped from the England Lions squad after his membership of a dubious WhatsApp group was revealed. And he could yet be called to give evidence in Hepburn’s retrial, which starts on 8 April.
Yet there was no sign that the turmoil had touched his batting – just a tick of a knee bend, a high backlift, and then a succession of the nice and easy strokes that made Nottinghamshire so keen to sign him. A tickle off the hips here, a push there, a nudge, a crisp back-foot off-drive. As he hit the nineties, and the overs ticked onwards towards 6pm, he slowed but there it was – a clip through midwicket, the first Championship century of the year. He punched the air, tightly hugged his teammate Tom Moores and raised his bat round the ground.
There were sweet runs, too, for Ben Slater, who moved across from Derbyshire late last summer, and a confident 43 from Ben Duckett, fresh from Northamptonshire.
Yorkshire’s bowlers struggled to make inroads. Duanne Olivier, who gave up his place in the South African team to sign for Yorkshire, found his first spell hard work. But he was to finish with two wickets after Slater was eventually caught behind and Steven Mullaney pushed at a quicker one and was caught at first slip. There were also two scalps for the Yorkshire captain, Steven Patterson. Ben Coad was nippy but wicketless.
The match had been billed as Joe Root v Stuart Broad but Broad spent the day with his feet up in the pavilion and Root whiled away the hours with his hands deep in his pockets at mid-on, though he was called to bowl 12 tidy overs. They will not mind a bit of easy-living. There is a long and wonderful summer of cricket ahead.
