Picture by John Heald. Dan Moriarty finished with four wickets in Nottinghamshire’s first innings.
Opener Fin Bean’s excellent season’s best 86 not out helped Yorkshire respond confidently to Nottinghamshire’s 487 all out during the second half of day two at Trent Bridge.
The Rothesay County Championship leaders put themselves in a strong position thanks to a pair of 87s from Indian wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan on debut and spin-bowling all-rounder Liam Patterson-White.
Dan Moriarty finished with 4-91 from 30.4 overs of left-arm spin, while George Hill and Will O’Rourke finished with two wickets apiece. For Hill, that was in addition to four catches.
However, Yorkshire’s best period of play came with the bat either side of tea, even though they lost opener Adam Lyth caught behind with the first ball of their first-innings reply. Yorkshire closed on 154-3 from 55 overs, with Bean leading the way thanks to his 13 fours in 199 balls. He shared a second-wicket 99 with James Wharton and 55 for the third with Dawid Malan.
Nottinghamshire resumed on 298-6, and their last four wickets added 189 more through to the midway point in the afternoon and, in total, 204 runs having lost their sixth wicket late last night with the score on 283.
Picture by John Heald. Fin Bean pulls against spin en-route to his first fifty of 2025 in the Championship.
Determined Moriarty added two more wickets to his tally, wrapping up the tail after much frustration. He later ended the day as nightwatchman.
Moriarty had Dillon Pennington caught and bowled for a career best run-a-ball 61 and Patterson-White.
The latter featured in two half-century partnerships either side of lunch on an attritional pitch which is lacking any obvious assistance for the bowlers.
Patterson-White completed a seventh-wicket partnership of 71 with fellow left-hander Kishan and 96 for the ninth with Pennington. All three men attacked Yorkshire, who had started the day with high hopes of bowling their hosts out for 350 or less.
The White Rose attack created plenty of pressure yesterday to limit the hosts after they had elected to bat on a used surface. Unfortunately, today they were unable to do the same.
Picture by John Heald. Dawid Malan and Dom Bess do a bit of synchronised ball retrieving this afternoon.
Kishan profited from a dropped catch at mid-wicket on 44 two balls into the day, off Jack White’s bowling, to move to a 57-ball fifty before pushing on in dynamic fashion.
Added to 12 fours, he launched Hill over long-on for his only six before falling when he was caught at mid-wicket by the same man on the pull against Dom Bess.
It was a sharp chance taken above Hill’s head, leaving Notts at 354-7 in the 107th over.
Yorkshire claimed two of the three bowling points on offer.
O’Rourke had Farhan Ahmed caught at first slip by Hill, his third of four catches in the innings. The New Zealand fast bowler’s second wicket left the hosts at 378-8 before lunch.
Picture by John Heald. George Hill claimed four catches in Nottinghamshire’s first innings, including three of them today.
However, there was significant damage done by Pennington, who pulled O’Rourke for two sixes in taking 24 off the 115th over of the innings as the score moved to 416-8 just before the break.
Pennington’s second first-class fifty was achieved off 38 balls before Notts closed in on 500 during the opening hour of the afternoon.
Patterson-White, having earlier reached his fifty off 82 balls, hit all four of his sixes down the ground – two off Bess and two off Moriarty.
The latter, however, had Pennington caught and bowled and Patterson-White caught at deep cover by Hill running in to wrap up the innings inside 133 overs.
Then came the Lyth dismissal to Abbas as he, half pushing forwards, edged behind one angled in from around the wicket. Keeper Kishan did the rest.
Picture by John Heald. Fin Bean celebrates his day two half-century, sharing 99 for the second wicket with James Wharton.
But Bean, who in 2022 scored his record-breaking 441 in second-team cricket at the Lady Bay ground just over the road from Trent Bridge, and Wharton responded to that setback impressively. Although Bean pulled a couple of boundaries and drilled one back down the ground off Patterson-White’s left-arm spin, this was very much about watchful resistance.
The pair took the score to 65-1 at tea and beyond, benefitting from five penalty runs along the way as new-ball quick Pennington showed over-aggression, according to the umpires, as he threw a ball back at batter Wharton.
Shortly after tea, Bean hammered Patterson-White straight of mid-off for his eighth boundary and went to his fifty not long after that from 114 balls as Yorkshire reached 88-1 in the 38th over. That became 99-2 when Wharton, on 36, miscued Pennington to mid-off.
Bean and Malan shared their half-century stand, the latter contributing 19. But he fell in the day’s penultimate over when he edged a drive at Patterson-White and was caught at slip, the ball having looped up off the body of wicketkeeper Kishan.
Cover picture of Fin Bean by Jack Bird.
