Jake Ball believes Nottinghamshire can still beat promotion rivals Worcestershire – despite suffering a ‘disappointing’ first day of the Specsavers County Championship clash at Trent Bridge.

The home side were put in to bat without a toss by Pears skipper Joe Leach under cloudy skies and amid rain delays, struggling to 188-9.

Notts were 79-1 at one point, but then Ed Barnard, who took 4-66, ran through the middle order as a succession of batsman got themselves in but failed to push on.

Having been called up to England’s IT20 and ODI squads for matches against the West Indies later this month, this is likely to be Ball’s last appearance for his county this summer.

And the former Welbeck player insists he can still go out on a high, saying: “We can still be competitive and win this game, even though we know we’ve been slightly under-par today.

“We would have liked to be a couple of less wickets down, but that can happen here and the conditions were difficult to bat in.

“But if we can scrape our way to 200 then I would back our bowlers. We know we can bowl sides out for anything if we bowl as we can.

“We are still really positive and we know from Northamptonshire last week that sometimes it can get easier batting second, and we can try to put a big score on then.”

Notts were 32 points clear of Worcestershire leading into this game with two more matches to follow, both away, at Northamptonshire and Sussex.

It means that even if a positive result isn’t forthcoming over the next few days, they still have other games to accrue the points they need to regain Division One status.

That said, Ball wants to play his part while he can – particularly as it is Chris Read’s last senior game for the county on home turf.

“I really want to help the team put in a big push, plus we want to send Ready off with a win,” he said.

“That is more than enough motivation for all of us in the dressing room for the rest of this match.”

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