Bethell impresses as Bears draw with Notts
Jake Bethell’s innings ended seven short of a deserved maiden century for Warwickshire
- Published
Vitality County Championship Division One, Edgbaston (day four)
Nottinghamshire 400: Duckett 218, Haynes 74, Slater 65; Hannon-Dalby 5-78 & 75-1
Warwickshire 361: Bethell 93, Barnard 69; James 3-65, Pennington 3-74
Warwickshire (14 pts) drew with Notts (15 pts)
Warwickshire made it four Division One draws out of four in the County Championship this season as their game with Nottinghamshire ended in its expected stalemate at Edgbaston.
After resuming on 175-5, in better weather than on the first three days, in reply to Notts’ 400 all out, the Bears still had to get to 251 to avoid the threat of being asked to follow on.
But Jake Bethell hit a career-best 93 to help the Bears reach 361 before Nottinghamshire went in again and made 75-1 second time around.
It was a grim conclusion to the last home County Championship game at Edgbaston until 23 June - in which England opener Ben Duckett had earlier shone with a double-century and last year’s leading Warwickshire wicket taker Olly Hannon-Dalby claimed his first ‘five-fer’ of the season.
It was Danny Briggs (37) who helped Bethell add 85 in 23 overs to steer their side to the requisite 251.
He skied Calvin Harrison to mid-on where sub fielder Freddie McCann took the catch.
Then Bethell’s classy and composed innings ended seven short of a deserved maiden century when he edged behind to give fit-again returning Bears old boy Olly Stone a first wicket back on his old patch.
Michael Burgess and Bears new signing Aamir Jamal (40) added 71 in 15 overs.
But, after Jamal hammered a return catch to Lyndon James, the Notts man then also took the last two wickets as Hasan Ali chipped into the covers and Burgess picked out mid-off.
When Nottinghamshire went into bat again, Duckett followed his 264-ball 218 by lasting just six balls.
But, after Hannon-Dalby trapped him lbw for his 12th scalp of the season, Notts skipper Haseeb Hameed (41 not out) and Ben Slater (26 not out) saw out the final two hours.
Both sides are without a game next week – but are each scheduled to return to action on Friday, 10 May when the Bears visit The Oval to face Surrey and Notts host Lancashire at Trent Bridge.
Warwickshire coach Mark Robinson told BBC CWR:
"I am chuffed with the boys and how we are travelling at the moment. We keep having to absorb some setbacks from a personnel point of view and then in this game we're on the wrong end of what was a good toss to win.
"They batted for the majority of the day under nice blue skies - every time it clouded over and the lights came on we took wickets. Then we batted for two days ourselves under dark cloud with the lights in horrendous conditions.
"They kept coming off so that refreshed the bowlers and we did really well just to stay alive. But we batted ourselves into safe waters and the core of the group has been strong. It was great to see Jake Bethell bat so well
"We would like to have won some games but the weather and conditions haven't allowed that."
Nottinghamshire coach Peter Moores told BBC Radio Nottingham:
"It was frustrating, in a way, because the weather has frustrated us in most of our games, but I was pleased with our performance.
"We haven't really put a game together this season but in this game we batted well, based around Ben Duckett's double hundred.
"We have settled as a team and started to grow. It is a new team, in some ways, with three new players but we have definitely started to feel like we are settling. This looks a good team on paper and it was great to get Olly Stone back. He bowled his best either side of lunch with a bit of pace and looked like he had found some rhythm.
"Dane Paterson is back to his best, Dillon Pennington is starting to grow each game and we have a young leggie in Calvin Harrison who is starting to look better each time he plays."