Nottinghamshire are within 300 runs of securing the County Championship crown after bowling out Warwickshire for 258 on day one at Trent Bridge.
Needing to secure a maximum of 10 points from the final round of matches to lift the title for the first time since 2010 after their victory over holders Surrey last week, Notts fulfilled their first requirement by taking all three bowling bonus points, led by Brett Hutton’s 4-46 and Mohammad Abbas’s 3-33.
And Surrey’s failure to take any of the five batting bonus points potentially up for grabs against Hampshire at Southampton, means they require just two more points in this match to be certain of becoming champions.
If they can muster anything above 300 with the bat within 110 overs in their first innings, the title will be theirs even if they were to lose and Surrey win.
They might have been on the field in pursuit of those runs already if Dan Mousley had not defied difficult batting conditions by scoring 74 to drive Warwickshire’s recovery from 127-5.
Mousley shared a 117-run sixth-wicket partnership with Ed Barnard, who exactly matched Will Young earlier in making 48 from 104 deliveries.
After choosing to bowl first, Nottinghamshire presumably would have hoped to send Warwickshire to lunch in a more precarious position than 70-1.
As it was, in an opening session limited to 25 overs after a wholly unforecast stoppage for rain, the visitors lost only Alex Davies, who was leg before to the 10th ball of the match as Hutton found some early movement through the air.
Abbas, returning from a minor back issue, bowled seven overs that on another day might have generated two or three wickets. Young and Rob Yates played and missed several times and edged other deliveries past the slips.
More rain delayed the afternoon session by 50 minutes but it began with another early wicket, Yates well held at second slip by Freddie McCann in Abbas’s second over.
Though the sky cleared, batting remained a challenge, although patience and some nifty footwork appeared to be paying off for Young.
Having saved himself on 35, managing to kick the ball away a sa delivery from Dillon Pennington squirmed under his bat towards the stumps, he was nearing a half-century against his former county, but he then he unexpectedly wafted at a ball from Hutton outside off stump and paid the price.
With Surrey already dismissed by Hampshire for just 147, a first bowling point for Nottinghamshire was enthusiastically applauded by the home crowd.
Two more wickets followed before tea as Sam Hain and Zen Malik were caught behind in consecutive overs, the latter from a ball from Lyndon James that moved late to find the edge of his defensive bat.
The middle session thus belonged to Nottinghamshire, yet Mousley and Barnard resisted and then fought back in the final session, Mousley becoming more confident and aggressive as the partnership grew, accelerating to a half-century from 62 balls, which he celebrated by going down the pitch to hit James back over his head for six.
In the final half-hour, though, the pendulum swung back to Nottinghamshire, left-arm spinner Liam Patterson-White claiming the second bowling point with a caught-and-bowled to remove Barnard before Abbas, bowling fast and straight with second new ball in hand, dismissed Michael Booth and Ethan Bamber in consecutive deliveries.
Hutton wrapped things up by bowling Tazeem Ali before Mousley holed out to long off, leaving Nottinghamshire within touching distance of the prize.
Match report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay
