Nottinghamshire wrapped up a 256-run win over Sussex with almost a day and a half to spare to consolidate their place at the top of Division Two in the LV=Insurance County Championship ahead of the September run-in.
The hosts were bowled out for 301 in their second innings soon after the start of the third day, giving Sussex a target of 399. In the event the youthful visitors managed 142 in 47.3 overs.
Overseas fast bowlers Dane Paterson (three for 14) and James Pattinson (three for 47) each raised their individual hauls to eight wickets in the match.
Without a number of players through injury and illness, Sussex realistically needed Indian Test star Cheteshwar Pujara to post a substantial score to give them any chance of taking the match into a fourth day. He finished unbeaten on 49 but no one could stay with him to build a partnership.
To compound their woes, Sussex left Trent Bridge with no points, their three bowling bonus points from the first innings cancelled out by a three-point deduction for a slow over-rate.
Nine wickets in the match for England’s Ollie Robinson on his return from a back injury and other issues therefore counted for nothing.
With two of their remaining home matches at home – against Leicestershire and Durham – and a visit to struggling Worcestershire in their other fixture, Nottinghamshire now look odds-on to seal promotion.
Bowling with a new ball after yesterday’s play ended with the first one exactly 80 overs old, Sussex at least needed only 25 deliveries with it to see off the Nottinghamshire tail.
Brad Currie bowled Liam Patterson-White with one that kept a touch low before Robinson had a tentative Luke Fletcher leg before and dismissed Pattinson via a miscue to cover.
Robinson finished with five for 60, enough to move him ahead of Henry Crocombe as Sussex’s leading wicket-taker on 17 at 15.64, despite this being only his third match of the Division Two campaign.
It left Sussex with a mighty task by anyone’s standards, let alone a team with six players aged 21 or under.
Tom Clark, almost run out without scoring, edged behind in Fletcher’s third over, but Ali Orr, who came into this match with almost 650 first-class runs for the season, made another good impression.
For a while it looked as though he might be the one to help Pujara make Nottinghamshire work for their win until he ran into a snorter from Pattinson that he could only fend away from his head, the ball looping off his glove for short-leg Ben Slater to claim the catch.
Fynn Hudson-Prentice – at 26 one of the senior Sussex batters – was at least with Pujara at lunch, but he departed a couple of overs later, nicking to the keeper as Paterson found some movement on a pitch still giving the bowlers something to work with.
Oli Carter perished to a poor shot, caught behind down the leg side off Fletcher, before Pattinson saw off the two 18-year-olds in consecutive overs as James Coles reprised Carter’s mode of dismissal and Archie Lenham, who had stuck around stubbornly for a brave 31 in the first innings, perished to his third ball as the Australian quick-zipped one through to send stumps flying in all directions.
Robinson fell to a leading edge off the medium pace of Steven Mullaney, caught at mid-off, where the ever-popular Fletcher delighted both his team-mates and his fan club in the Radcliffe Road stand by throwing his not inconsiderable frame to his right to take a diving catch.
Sussex’s abject afternoon continued when Pujara changed his mind about scrambling a single to midwicket off the final ball of a Patterson-White over, leaving Ari Kavelas stranded as Lyndon James made a direct hit with his throw in, before Paterson wrapped up the win at 3.25pm as Currie followed Sean Hunt back to the pavilion as a second lbw in consecutive overs.
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Nottinghamshire head coach Peter Moores said: “It is a really good win because it is consistent with what we have been doing. We’ve kept sides under pressure in games but in the last three we haven’t managed to get over the line despite playing really good cricket, so to get the reward of a win is nice.
“We did not bat as well as we can in the first innings, when quite a few of our players would be disappointed with the way they got out, but we still got to 240, which shows what depth we have in the batting.
“This season, someone has always managed to get runs, and this time it was Steven Mullaney, who gave us a real captain’s innings in conditions that were difficult at times.
“In the second, that partnership between Haseeb Hameed and Lyndon James was pivotal in the game. The speed they scored at took the game away from Sussex very quickly and created the platform for our bowlers to bowl them out.
“And then we had two outstanding performances with the ball from Jimmy Pattinson and Dane Paterson, who challenged their batters in different ways.
“The ball that Dane got Pujara leg before with in the first innings was one of the balls of the season, a beautiful bit of bowling because of what built up to it. He plugged away round about a fourth stump line and then he bowled what was a fantastic inswinger that felt like it was a yard quicker, nipped a bit off the pitch and basically hit Pujara before he could move. When you get a player of that quality out in that manner, it’s something special.”
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Sussex head coach Ian Salisbury said: “We are disappointed to lose but it showed where the two teams are – one flying high at the top of the division, putting out roughly the best side they can put out, and we are just learning.
“We had two good performances in the match which were from our most experienced players in Pujara and Robinson.
“You can say that 50 runs here or there in the first innings could have made it a bit tighter, a couple of decisions that had gone our way might have made it a different game.
“We dropped Mullaney a couple of times in what turned out to be the key innings for them in the first innings and those are the fine lines you talk about. But I think Nottinghamshire just showed their experience in the end.
“But we have some good young players we are excited about and we are getting better. We had players missing here but that is cricket life and you have to do the best with what you’ve got – and we were beaten by a more experienced, better team.”
