Background
Nottinghamshire face Warwickshire at Trent Bridge this week, with both sides currently languishing in mid-table and hoping for a win that would ease them into contention for a finish in the top half of the table.
Warwickshire’s draw with Sussex last week leaves them in fifth place, on 150 points, after 13 matches. Nottinghamshire are sixth, 26 points behind but with a game in hand.
Head To head
In overall meetings the sides have met on 128 occasions, with Nottinghamshire boasting a winning record of 40 successes to Warwickshire’s 31. One match was abandoned without a ball being bowled and the other 56 matches have been drawn.
Notts have hosted the Bears on 65 occasions, winning 28 times – most recently in 2010. Warwickshire’s win in 2011 was their tenth in Nottingham and last season’s draw was the 27th time the contest has finished without a positive result. The 1987 fixture was staged at Worksop, and resulted in an innings victory for Notts, but all other meetings have been at the county headquarters at Trent Bridge.
Last Meeting
For much of last season the final round of fixtures was eagerly anticipated. Notts were set to play host to Warwickshire, with the two sides having been the frontrunners for most of the campaign.
As it materialised, the contest lost it’s ‘wow-factor’ with Warwicks having already wrapped up the title before arriving in Nottingham, to face a side who had slipped away due to a succession of England call-ups.
The match provided a thrilling final day and a case of ‘not only but almost’ as the home side narrowly failed to pull off a victory.
After trailing by 49 on first innings, Notts piled on the runs second time around. With Steven Mullaney making 94, and Paul Franks ending with an unbeaten 86, the home side were able to declare on 469 for eight declared.
Chasing an improbable 421 in 90 overs the newly-crowned champions were soon in disarray as Luke Fletcher took three quick wickets.
Warwickshire faced a one-day final at Lord’s the following day but showed no sign of wanting to get on the roads early as they fought back with impressive innings’ of 80 from Chris Woakes, 46 from Ian Westwood, 44 from Ian Blackwell and an undefeated 44 from Keith Barker.
Despite Paul Franks claiming figures of 4-47, to conclude a fine individual match, Notts were unable to bowl their visitors out and the match ended in a draw with them on 290-8.
By virtue of not taking the final two wickets Notts ended the season in fifth place but would have gone third with a win.
History
Previous clashes with Warwickshire throw up a host of memories and a cluster of random statistics from classic encounters, both from a bygone era as well as more recent times.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the longevity of the fixture, Warwickshire have never reached 500 at Trent Bridge, with Notts only doing it once against their forthcoming opponents, with 514 in 2005.
That game saw David Hussey make 232, the first of his three ‘double-tons’ for Nottinghamshire and the highest individual score by a Notts player at home to Warwickshire.
The Bears’ Rohan Kanhai did even better in 1968, scoring 253 out of a stand of 402 for the fourth wicket with Khalid Ibadulla, a first class record at Trent Bridge.
Kanhai, one of the West Indies all-time greats, clearly enjoyed batting in West Bridgford as he also recorded centuries on two other visits with his county – 105 in 1970 and 114 in 1973.
The series of matches has featured some of the game’s outstanding performers, with many of them coming to the fore in this particular clash. Best bowling honours for the visitors came in the very first meeting – way back in 1894 – when James Whitehead claimed eight wickets. In a 58 match career his figures of 41.4-24-47-8 were easily the best he ever achieved.
Nottinghamshire’s best bowling at home to the Bears was achieved by Harold Larwood in 1930. The fearsome quickie grabbed 7-57. Three years ago another Nottinghamshire and England Test bowler did take eight wickets against Warwickshire for the first time but Stuart Broad’s 8-53 came at Edgbaston.
Stuart’s father Chris is one of a host of star names to record a century in the fixture. His 104 came in 1992 and was preceded and emulated by the likes of Tim Robinson (207 in 1983), Derek Randall (113 a year later), Paul Johnson (120* in 1995) and Darren Bicknell’s 167 in 2001.
Bicknell’s effort came a year after he and Guy Welton put on an unbroken 406 for the first wicket against Warwickshire at Edgbaston – a ground record.
Current Notts skipper Chris Read has enjoyed the fixture with centuries in 1999 (160) and also in 2009 (110) whilst his absence in 2006 enabled David Alleyne to score a career-high 106, as well as picking up a tally of nine dismissals in the match.
Played for them both
Maurice Chambers made his Warwickshire debut last week, taking 5-68 against Sussex at Edgbaston.
The 25-year old fast bowler has joined them on loan from Essex, just three weeks after making a sole second XI appearance for Nottinghamshire.
Chambers returned figures of 24.5-6-73-3 against Lancashire Seconds in an innings defeat at Great Crosby.
In 2010 the Jamaican-born speedster ripped through the Notts batting line-up at Chelmsford to take first innings figures of 6-68, the best of his career, on his way to collecting his only 10-wicket match haul.
Others to have represented both Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire at first class level include Dilip Doshi, Deryck Murray, Eddie Hemmings, Vasbert Drakes, Anurag Singh and Mark Wagh.
Did you know?
The last time a Nottinghamshire bowler took a hat-trick in a county championship match at Trent Bridge came against Warwickshire.
On 16 July 1997 Paul Franks dismissed Trevor Penney, Dougie Brown and Graeme Welch with successive deliveries. Penney was caught behind, by wicketkeeper Wayne Noon, with Brown and Welch, both now firmly ensconced in the Edgbaston coaching set-up, each being clean bowled.
Milestones
Chris Read is closing in on a number of milestones. He has taken 899 career victims (852 catches 47 stumpings). Of those catches, 740 have been for Notts, putting him only 5 behind Thomas Oates’ unsubstantiated county record of 745. He has also taken 399 first class catches at Trent Bridge.
James Taylor has scored 997 first class runs this season, 843 of them in the first division of the LV= county championship. Michael Lumb is on 903 (820) and Samit Patel 891 (617).
Luke Fletcher has played 49 first class matches and has taken 148 wickets – all for Notts.
Andre Adams has taken 295 wickets for the county, with 145 of them coming at Trent Bridge.
Tickets
Tickets may be purchased from the gate at a cost of £14 for Adults, £8 for Juniors, Senior Citizens and Students.
Coverage
BBC Radio Nottingham will be providing ball-by-ball on-line commentary, via the BBC Sport website.