Nottinghamshire’s patched-up bowling attack ensured that Peter Moores inherits a winning team when he puts the tracksuit back on at Trent Bridge on Friday.
Parachuted in to provide some recuperative powers in Nottinghamshire’s fight against the drop, he will begin his three-month consultancy with the mood much improved on what it was when he accepted the role earlier this week. The side began this round of matches at the bottom of Division One but courtesy of the heroics of Andy Carter, in particular, now sit 13 points above the drop zone.
“Pete will walk into a very upbeat dressing room and the players have every right to be positive given their efforts,” said Mick Newell, the club’s director of cricket, following victory against one of their relegation rivals.
“This game has gone all over the place over four days and even today we were looking at where we could get a wicket from for certain periods. But they stuck at it and I could not fault the bowling and fielding performance.”
It appeared inconceivable 72 hours earlier that Carter – the angular fast bowler recalled from a loan spell at Glamorgan for this match – would finish with a smile on his face. Or finish the match at all, for that matter. But, having been ruled out of further participation by Newell at stumps on day one due to an abdominal tear, Carter decided that decision should be re-evaluated three-quarters of the way into his hour-long commute from Lincoln next morning.
“It wasn’t until I got to Bingham that I actually thought, ‘I need to have a go here.’ I felt I owed the team as much as anything. I knew that if I could bowl just three or four over spells it would let the other lads have a break,” he said.
Torso strapped to the nines, he took five overs off the tallies of Ben Hilfenhaus and Brett Hutton first time around, and made an even more spectacular contribution in the second; his burst of three for six in 22 deliveries securing the result shortly after 5pm. Earlier, he beat Joe Clarke’s waft to knock out off-stump, just as Worcestershire were threatening to break the back of the chase.
“What just happened here was done on adrenaline. I imagine I will be pretty sore in the morning,” he said.
Just as in the first innings, Worcestershire got themselves into a terrific position only to relinquish it. They were 160-2 first time around yet their advantage at the midpoint of the match was only 43 runs. Here, they negotiated the morning for the loss of only one wicket and with the captain Daryl Mitchell and the increasingly-impressive Tom Fell taking lunch with half-centuries to their names it appeared they were an even chance to win.
But the tireless Hutton accounted for Fell during a fine afternoon spell from the pavilion end and when Carter’s effort ball dismissed Clarke before tea a sizeable chase of 324 was looking an insurmountable one. It effectively left them 175-4 with Alex Gidman grounded due to a club policy on concussion that does not allow their players to bat within six days.
Crucially, it altered the approach of their innings anchor Mitchell, who played out five consecutive maidens from the miserly Samit Patel. In a 71-ball spell, Mitchell took only 11 runs off the left-arm spinner, all but one struck square on the off-side. That period also saw him survive an extremely difficult stumping chance on 58.
Typically, when he changed tactics, an injudicious sweep brought about his downfall, the first of six wickets to fall for 17 runs in 13 overs.
“In hindsight I could have taken it into the last hour and looked to go on the charge then but I just felt if I could get a man back on the leg side I could pick him off for ones a lot easier,” said Mitchell.
“It was probably the wrong ball – it was a bit short for a sweep shot, really – so I hold my hands up there. But even then we capitulated far too easily after tea.”
Ben Cox threaded two fours between the pair of close catchers at midwicket but perished in going for a hat-trick, and with him went any thoughts of a 16-point haul. Soon it was obvious that even the five for a draw would be beyond them: Ed Barnard resisted for a 32-ball duck, eventually undone by a pearler from Patel, while smart catches at short leg and leg slip either side of Saeed Ajmal being trapped lbw completed Carter’s return of four for 46.
The 26-year-old is expected to be out for a month, as is Luke Fletcher who limped off with a hamstring pull on the first evening. The other hamstring victim, James Taylor, will miss a fortnight, according to Newell.
That means multiple changes for Friday’s T20 Blast contest between these teams as Moores returns to work 55 days after being sacked by England.
