Nottinghamshire require a further seven wickets to clinch victory from their delicately poised LV=Insurance County Championship fixture against Warwickshire after a rollercoaster day three at Trent Bridge.
Chasing 333 to win from a minimum 130 overs, the visitors lost Rob Yates - opening in the place of the injured Dominic Sibley - leg before to Stuart Broad with one that kept a touch low and Indian Test batsman Hanuma Vihari, whose off-stump was sent cartwheeling by the Green and Golds’ homegrown all-rounder Lyndon James, to be 34 for two.
Skipper Will Rhodes and Sam Hain added 51, but the loss of Rhodes, trapped on the crease by left-arm spinner Liam Patterson-White to the day’s final delivery, left the Bears 85-3 overnight and could prove to be a key moment.
Warwickshire set up their target by bowling out Nottinghamshire for 260; left-arm spinner Danny Briggs taking four for 68 and England pace bowler Olly Stone three for 66.
Nottinghamshire had looked well placed at 128 for two overnight, with a lead of 200, but began the day by losing both Haseeb Hameed and Joe Clarke before either could add substantially to the half-centuries they carried forward. Hameed edged Rhodes to wicketkeeper Michael Burgess before Stone removed Clarke in similar fashion.
James and Steven Mullaney cautiously added 57 for the fifth wicket before Stone thudded a fast, straight ball into James’s pads, but then Warwickshire claimed five wickets for 23 runs - three of them in the space of four deliveries to Briggs - to leave the home side nine down before the mid-afternoon pause for the funeral of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
Mullaney and Tom Moores took turns to hammer sixes back over the spinner’s head. But Mullaney slapped the fifth ball of the next over straight to point, Liam Patterson-White was bowled by the sixth and, after Broad hurried through for a single after surviving the hat-trick ball at the start of his next over, Briggs bowled Moores off an inside edge.
Broad departed soon afterwards, edging Olly Hannon-Dalby to second slip.
Zak Chappell and Dane Paterson added 39 for the last wicket as Paterson thrashed five boundaries - five of them in an entertaining duel with Stone - before skewing one in the air to become a fourth victim for Briggs.
It swelled the Nottinghamshire total to 260 to leave a difficult target on a wicket showing signs of deterioration and the possibility of a grandstand finish in the offering.
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Nottinghamshire members and supporters can watch every ball of day four on Sunday, and peruse the live scorecard, via the Trent Bridge Live match centre here…