Yorkshire captain Steve Patterson hails ‘fantastic achievement’ after Trent Bridge victory

So said Andrew Gale, the Yorkshire first team coach, ahead of the final day’s play at Trent Bridge.

Perhaps a second career in clairvoyance awaits Gale should he ever get tired of cricket coaching.

After his team indeed got a few more runs, adding 19 for their last three wickets to be dismissed for 278 in their second innings, and after they indeed nipped out a couple of early wickets, the hosts duly went on to panic and fold, Yorkshire routing them for 97 in pursuit of 188 as the visitors won by 90 runs.

Gale’s prediction that Notts could go down like a pack of cards was by no means intended as disrespectful; after all, this is a side that has not won a first-class game for over two years, a sequence now extended to 24 matches, 17 of which have been lost.

Presented with the unfamiliar and tantalising whiff of victory, a whiff that rarely fills Nottingham nostrils these days, it was perhaps understandable that the hosts should become a touch giddy with the winning line within range.

Sure enough, after losing their first two wickets with the total on 16, and their third with the score on 46, Notts collapsed from 61-3 to lose their last seven wickets for 36 runs in 13 overs, not so much a collapse as an implosion as Yorkshre’s superiority eventually told.

Steve Patterson, the Yorkshire captain, whose side have now won their opening two games in the Bob Willis Trophy, was delighted with a win rendered more impressive by the fact that they came back from a 91-run first-innings deficit and were without two frontline bowlers in the injured Ben Coad and Matthew Fisher.

“It was very pleasing in that respect,” said Patterson. “I think Notts are one of the strongest sides in our group in terms of experience and ability in the dressing room, but they’re a team that haven’t won for a while, and sometimes you forget how to win, and I felt there was a little element of that in the fourth innings.

“It wasn’t a huge total to chase, but the fact that we got a couple of early ones and put that pressure on, it kind of got us on top.

“We were a little bit surprised with how it went in the end; we thought it was going to be a long slog and it might get down to the last 20 runs or whatever, but for it to happen the way it did was very satisfying.

“We felt anything from 170-180 upwards to chase put it back on them really, whereas if they were chasing 80-100, all it takes is one partnership and they’re over the line.”

Patterson went on: “We’ve now played two games in the competition with quite young sides, and to have come away with two wins is a fantastic achievement.

“It shows that these lads, if they get the opportunity, can make an impact, and I was delighted with them and the way that they played.”

Ideally, Yorkshire would have liked a few more than 19 runs on the final morning to set a target of at least 200-plus.

It was another scorcher, with the sun beating down on a parched-looking outfield and a used pitch that Gale had described the previous night as a “seventh-day” surface.

There remained plenty of help for the bowlers after Yorkshire resumed on 259-7. Zak Chappell continued a fine game for Notts when he had Duanne Olivier caught behind early in the piece, the South African failing to add to his overnight eight, before off-spinner Matt Carter rounded things off by having Dominic Leech and Jonny Tattersall caught by Steven Mullaney at slip. Leech top-edged a sweep and Tattersall – who hit a fine 53 from 180 balls – reverse-swept straight to the man.

Olivier bowled impressively from the Pavilion end, trapping Chris Nash in the fifth over before Leech, the 19-year-old pace bowler on first-class debut, dismissed Haseeb Hameed for the second time in the match, caught down the leg side by Jonny Bairstow.

Ben Duckett edged Olivier into the gully on the stroke of lunch, Dawid Malan flying to his right to cling on brilliantly, before wickets tumbled in the sultry afternoon.

Olivier caught Joe Clarke off his own bowling; Patterson had Mullaney caught behind playing a nothing shot; Jordan Thompson made a mess of Tom Moores’s stumps, and Jack Shutt trapped Peter Trego.

Thompson added the wickets of Chappell and Carter, caught at mid-wicket and lbw respectively to cap a fine individual display, and Shutt claimed the winning scalp when Samit Patel picked out mid-wicket.

Shutt, the 23-year-old off-spinner, had struggled in the first innings. His work second time around was tribute to his character.

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