Brett Hutton was the man on fire during the first spell of the second day of the LV= County Championship game at Northamptonshire on Friday.

The Notts man, who was making his first return to Wantage road following a three-year stint with Northants, built on his excellent start to the season with another unplayable display. Under floodlit, dull skies and breezy conditions, Hutton was able to find a huge amount of movement in the pitch, taking 5/37 with four of his five wickets taking outside edges caught in the slips by Ben Duckett (twice), Joe Clarke and Lyndon James.

It was James himself who was first to strike in the morning session, taking Zaib (35), which opened the floodgates with seven wickets falling for just seventeen runs. Mullaney dismissed James Sales for one run in his first over of the day, with Paterson taking his second wicket of the game dismissing Jordan Buckingham who followed Keogh, Gouldstone, and Taylor in not troubling the scorers.

17 overs were lost following a rain delay which brought about an early lunch, and on resumption Gareth Berg and Jack White added a commendable 21 runs to the score to leave Notts chasing 158.

Despite the wind whistling round the ground, Notts’ first innings began strongly with Haseeb Hameed and Ben Duckett exploiting plenty of space around the outfield. Duckett punished anything loose taking three boundaries off Berg’s opening two overs. 

Duckett survived a few close shaves, one particular outside edge which went sailing between keeper and first slip before he eventually fell for 39, lbw off the bowling of Tom Taylor. The Northamptonshire seamer didn’t have to wait long for his second either, taking the wicket of Haseeb Hameed four balls later who edged to first slip. 

With their tails up Northamptonshire’s attack claimed another wicket with Ben Slater edging to Vasconcelos for his second catch in consecutive overs, Slater departing for 5.

Lyndon James and Joe Clarke forged a stubborn partnership in the evening session, with a stylish knock from Clarke seeing Notts through to stumps.

Bad light brought things to a premature end 4 overs before the scheduled finish with Notts 4 wickets down, 1 run behind, and with a better forecast expected will be hoping to build a sizeable lead on day 3.