A match-turning spell by England fast bowler Josh Tongue saw Notts to victory over Durham by eight wickets in their Rothesay County Championship season-opener.
Tongue, making his first appearance for the county, conjured four wickets in 12 deliveries from a ball right at the end of its 80-over match lifespan to finish with figures of 5/66 in the second innings.
Durham lost their last five wickets for 21 runs, leaving Nottinghamshire needing 89 to win from 40 overs remaining in the match, a task they completed for the loss of two wickets, skipper Haseeb Hameed making 39 and Joe Clarke 35.
Tongue’s achievement came after Nottinghamshire’s other debut-making fast bowler, Australian Fergus O’Neill, had taken five for 81 in the first innings. Tongue also made a career-best 55 with the bat in Nottinghamshire’s first innings.
If Durham’s approach to the final day was always likely to be cautious, it was confirmed after Pennington opened with a sharp seven-over spell that brought him two wickets for 10 runs.
And after the pacy Pennington had removed Ollie Robinson via an edge to first slip and Will Rhodes leg before, angling one in from a wide delivery point, Durham found themselves five down and still 78 behind.
From then on, Colin Ackermann and Graham Clark dug in for a long fight and any hope that Pennington’s burst might trigger a rapid Durham collapse soon subsided.
The sixth-wicket pair reached lunch still together, before clearing the arrears seven overs into the afternoon session with the innings 68 overs old.
Durham’s first-innings centurion completed his second hundred of the match five overs later, a career-first for the 34-year-old and a 28th in all in first-class cricket.
By now, Nottinghamshire’s best chance of making a breakthrough seemed to be with the second new ball, which was seven overs from being available as the Durham dressing room celebrated Ackermann’s feat.
Yet Tongue dramatically changed the picture in what would have been the last over - the 80th - with the old ball, taking wickets with the first and last deliveries of it as Clark was bowled off an inside edge, ending a partnership with Ackermann worth 145, and new batter George Drissell was leg before, beaten for pace.
Not surprisingly, Nottinghamshire captain Hameed invited Tongue to carry on with the same ball. A wise move it was, the seamer repeating the trick in his next over, ripping out Ben Raine’s middle stump with the first delivery, beating Ackermann’s flick across the line with the sixth.
O’Neill promptly finished things off with the new ball by inducing an easy return catch with a slower ball to Matty Potts, meaning Durham had collapsed from 268 for five to 289 all out in the space of six and a half overs.
After tea was taken between innings, the home side had 40 overs available to score 89. The lost their own first-innings centurion Ben Slater, and Freddie McCann, but wrapped up victory at 4.55pm with 22.5 overs to spare.
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