County Championship: Hameed and Duckett press Nottinghamshire ahead at Derbyshire

  • Published
Haseeb Hameed batting for NottinghamshireImage source, Rex Features
Image caption,

Haseeb Hameed has now scored 401 runs at an average of 57.28 in the County Championship this season

County Championship Group One, The Incora County Ground, Derby (day two):

Nottinghamshire 256: Slater 107; Hudson-Prentice 4-36 & 318: Hameed 94, Duckett 87, Clarke 53; Hudson-Prentice 4-40

Derbyshire 105: Critchley 33; Fletcher 5-28 & 23-0

Derbyshire (3 pts) need 447 more runs to beat Nottinghamshire (5 pts)

Haseeb Hameed and Ben Duckett helped put Nottinghamshire in a commanding position on day two at Derbyshire.

The hosts added 19 runs in the morning before being dismissed for 105, still 151 runs behind, with Luke Fletcher (5-28) taking the final two wickets.

After the early departure of Ben Slater, Hameed and Duckett (87) put on 157 for Notts' second wicket.

Hameed (94) fell short of his ton as the visitors posted 318, and Derbyshire reached 23-0 at the close.

But Luis Reece (13 not out) and Tom Wood (9 not out) have plenty of work to do, with Derbyshire needing 447 more runs to pull off an unlikely victory.

The task could have been even larger had Nottinghamshire not lost their final five second-innings wickets for just 10 runs after the dismissal of Joe Clarke (53) prompted a tail-end collapse.

Slater missed out on a third consecutive century when he went for 24 after a ball from Reece hit his pad and dislodged the leg bail, but Hameed bounced back from a duck in the first innings to continue his fine form with the bat this season.

However, the 24-year-old left-hander saw his ambitions of a third hundred in four innings ended in the first over after tea when he was bowled trying to cut Matt Critchley.

Fynn Hudson-Prentice helped Derbyshire fight back, taking 4-40 to end with career-best match figures of 8-76, but even so Notts are well on track to record their first victory in red-ball cricket since 2018.