Duckett nears double-ton in holding Notts’ batting together

Nottinghamshire 367 for 8 (Duckett 197*, Haynes 74, Slater 65, Hannon-Dalby 4-58) vs Warwickshire

A mature and composed century from Ben Duckett held Nottinghamshire’s batting together on the opening day of their Vitality Championship Division One match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

England batter Duckett constructed a superb unbeaten 197 off 230 balls as his side made erratic but highly entertaining progress to 367 for 8.

It was a patchy display from Nottinghamshire as three batters – Duckett, Ben Slater (65) and Jack Haynes (74) – passed 60 but nobody else reached double figures against an attack led by the redoubtable Oliver Hannon-Dalby.

With Liam Norwell and Chris Rushworth still injured, Warwickshire gave a debut to seamer Aamer Jamal who joined fellow Pakistan international Hasan Ali in the seam team. Jamal looked under-cooked on his way to 10-0-48-0 but Hannon-Dalby, on his 200th appearance for Warwickshire, carried the attack yet again with 19-3-58-4 – superb figures on a good batting pitch.

The first two championship matches of the season at Edgbaston having yielded 2,496 runs, Nottinghamshire captain Haseeb Hameed did not hesitate to choose to bat, but he perished early and carelessly when he lifted Hannon-Dalby to cover in the seventh over. The Yorkshiremen should have had further immediate success when Slater edged to third slip before he had scored but Jake Bethell grassed a straightforward chance.

It proved a costly reprieve as Duckett and Slater added 146 in 32 overs. Slater batted with increasing fluency, 52 of his 65 runs coming in fours, before Hannon-Dalby returned to unfurl a lovely away-cutter that took the edge through to wicketkeeper Michael Burgess.

That triggered the loss of three wickets for 15 runs as cricket’s enduring ability to bring people down to earth with a jolt spectacularly showed itself. Last week, Will Young and Joe Clarke shared 397 runs in a record partnership against Somerset at Taunton. This time they managed just five between them after falling to the first and last balls of a Will Rhodes over, both sweet outswingers which were nicked to Burgess.

Duckett advanced to his 27th first-class century from 126 balls and found a solid partner in Haynes. The former Worcestershire player struck 11 fours in an attractive knock before the new ball brought another cluster of wickets. Hannon-Dalby produced a nifty in-ducker which trapped Haynes lbw and then Hasan Ali had Lyndon James caught behind and bowled Calvin Harrison who offered no shot.

When Olly Stone, back in the team against his former team-mates in place of Brett Hutton (achilles injury) edged Hannon-Dalby to second slip, Nottinghamshire were eight wickets down and Duckett still needed nine for his double ton. The first four of those came from an audacious ramp over over the wicketkeeper’s head off Rhodes, but then bad light closed in to leave the England man poised on the threshold overnight.

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