Nottinghamshire hold nerve to take honours

Nottinghamshire coach Mick Newell paid tribute to his side after they claimed the LV County Championship in dramatic circumstances.

After three days of Old Trafford bad weather frustrated the Trent Bridge county, Nottinghamshire finally claimed the points they needed by declaring on 400-9 before taking three quick Lancashire wickets.

It meant Nottinghamshire won the title by virtue of having won more games than Somerset – who drew with Durham – after twice passing up the chance to do so in recent weeks in losing to Yorkshire and the north east county, and without resorting to manufacturing a run chase with their opponents.

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"I'm very proud," Newell said. "It's a fantastic game for our club. To win it like that, people will look it as an honest and fair way to win.

"We had to work hard to get there. Lancashire gave full commitment and fielded like a Twenty20 game."

Newell conceded he had been far from confident at times in recent weeks.

He said: "There's been a number of times when I couldn't see us winning it – last week against Yorkshire, 59 all out was a disaster for us, then this morning when rain held up play again. We've been criticised in the last couple of weeks for bottling it, so to come up with a performance like that, I'm very very pleased."

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On the decision to let the game take its course rather than negotiate a run chase with their opponents, captain Chris Read added: "We had to have positive thoughts and we had to go one way or the other. The vast majority just said let's go out and bash 400 and take three wickets.

"A lot of the guys got together and had a chat about what we should do and decided on balance the best route was to back ourselves to get 400. It clearly worked for us."