Freddie McCann century lets Notts breathe easier in relegation battle

Nottinghamshire 324 for 6 (McCann 130, Verreynne 76*) vs Warwickshire

Minutes after play in the other key relegation match was abandoned for the day without a ball bowled in Worcester, Nottinghamshire at last resumed their own crucial Vitality County Championship match against Warwickshire at Trent Bridge. A 1pm start meant 110 overs have been lost so far.

But, easing home anxiety, the locally-raised, left-handed teenager Freddie McCann compensated with a massively impressive 130 to add to earlier scores of 51 and 154 in what is still only seven innings since his debut.

From 55 for 3, Notts recovered to 324 for 6 at the close, Jack Haynes offering a more measured 47 and Kyle Verreynne an increasingly rapid unbeaten 76 in support. On what has settled down into a very benign pitch, Nottinghamshire have already secured two batting points and a draw will now be enough now for both sides to escape the drop.

Batting in sunshine with blue sky overhead proved entirely less fraught than the ordeal on a seaming pitch that had seen Notts reach 33 for 2 from the 15.2 overs possible on Thursday. But in a strong crosswind Michael Booth, first change, produced a perfect outswinger for his fifth ball of the day to knock back Joe Clarke’s off stump for 12.

The 23-year old Zimbabwean, in just his fourth first-class appearance, proved hit and miss, however, and even Olly Hannon-Dalby lost accuracy as McCann raced to a fifty from 87 balls in a period that brought 99 plundered runs in a dozen overs. The true nature of this pitch had become very clear.

Reduced to posting a solitary slip for Craig Miles, Warwickshire still struggled to stem an advance that carried the home side to within 20 minutes of tea before another batter fell. Haynes became an early victim for Danny Briggs’s left-arm spin when beautifully held at slip by Will Rhodes.

It ended a 127-run stand at better than a-run-a-ball and the interval, coming after 36.4 of the day’s re-jigged quota of 75.4 overs (the last eight were lost later to bad light), arrived with 211 for 4 on the board and McCann just past his century from 147 balls.

Warwickshire tightened up markedly through 55 minutes in the evening but found another partnership beginning to accelerate. Verreyyne, the South Africa wicket-keeper with a Test hundred to his credit, settled into his fourth innings since joining Notts and the first batting point came up what proved an hour from the close.

With the fifth wicket having added 98, it was a surprise when, from nowhere it seemed, two men then fell in eight balls, McCann yorked by Miles’s second ball back. Next over, Lyndon James had come and gone for 2, edging to the lone slip as Rhodes, the seventh bowler, reprised his knack of invariably grabbing an early success.

But the 300 came up, and a second batting point with it, and if Warwickshire can claim their final bowling point on Saturday and also pass 300 themselves, they would not go down whatever happens in either relegation game.

Away from play, eyes remain on a threatening forecast – the weather may yet have the last say. With only two days left for Lancashire at Worcester, where just 26 overs have proved possible, they have many miles to make up and rain is feared both there and in Nottingham on Sunday afternoon. Notts and Warwickshire supporters may be breathing more easily at the half-way point of this final round.