County Championship: Notts v Warwicks – Champions end season with win

Hameed’s team won the title with 224 points, having had one deducted for a slow over-rate, the skipper leading the way with the bat, totalling 1,258 runs.

Six Nottinghamshire bowlers took 26 wickets or more in the course of the season but none more than Hutton, leading wicket-taker with 38, seven of them in this match.

Having been on the ropes overnight, three down for seven in their second innings and still 109 behind, a Warwickshire side with only a slim chance of improving on fourth place in the Division One table might have been been rolled over even more rapidly under a cloudy sky on the third morning.

Nottinghamshire had been eager to start their full-blown Championship celebrations a day early after making sure of the title on Thursday.

As it was, Will Young was Warwickshire’s only casualty before lunch, falling into what looked like a trap laid by his former county as he clipped a ball from Abbas straight into the hands of Lyndon James at square leg.

Zen Malik took four boundaries in a single over against Pennington but rode his luck at other times, edging the same bowler between second and third slips before surviving a difficult caught-and-bowled chance to James on 16.

Warwickshire were 79-4 at the first break and there seemed a case for tossing Liam Patterson-White the ball to add some variety to Warwickshire’s diet but the left-arm spinner remained stationed in the slip cordon as Hameed kept faith with his seamers, justifiably as it turned out.

There was still something in the pitch, as Sam Hain discovered four overs into the afternoon, caught behind off a ball from James that left him enough to take the edge.

It felt like the key wicket for Nottinghamshire and one well deserved by all-rounder James for a consistently testing spell.

Yet it was Pennington who hastened Warwickshire’s demise in short order, taking three wickets in five balls in his 12th over of the innings.

He dismissed Malik leg before and had Ed Barnard caught behind from a lifting delivery that took the glove before benefitting from some good fortune as Michael Booth looked to have kept out his first ball before it rolled into the stumps, as a consequence of which Warwickshire were eight down and still 12 behind.

They managed to get their noses narrowly in front before Hutton finished them off, still finding movement to pin Tazeem Ali leg before and bowl Nathan Gilchrist, who shouldered arms to one that swung away and then jagged back to bowl him – handing the stage to Slater and Hameed to finish the job.

Match report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay

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