Yorkshire chip away as Trent Bridge remembers the great Garry Sobers

“What a player. A great privilege to have seen you play Garry when I was a kid. An inspiration. RIP,” read another.

“With many thanks for your generous hospitality in Barbados. A true gentleman and without doubt the greatest player ever,” someone else noted, the words scribbled beside a black biro waiting for the next hand to add its own reminiscence.

Simple, touching, moving stuff. Trent Bridge honours its heroes well.

It was a day that Sobers would have liked, with September sunshine warming the players.

He would have liked the cricket too, with its competitive tension, although it was attritional enough that his eye might have wandered every now and then to the afternoon racecard at nearby Southwell.

By stumps, just as the evening races were getting under way, Nottinghamshire were 242-9 after being sent into bat, Haseeb Hameed scoring 71 and Jack Haynes 48.

Yorkshire gave little away and stuck to their task well, Ben Cliff the most successful bowler with 4-39, building on his excellent recent form.

For many years this ground changed hardly at all, although it is increasingly different from Sobers’s day. All four sides have now been redeveloped, with the new pavilion nearing completion.

The red-bricked exterior is now in place, with the official opening set for next summer.

One or two workmen could be seen looking down on the action in high-viz jackets on Thursday, while several members sat in the padded white seats in front of the new structure behind the bowler’s arm.

Those members saw a generally sedate start to the match, the “big first hour” bringing 34 runs and no wickets.

Hameed and Ben Slater, the opening batsmen, played well on a green-looking pitch that perhaps did not do quite as much as one might have thought it would from beyond the boundary, although there was still some morning help for the seamers.

Cliff, who took 11 wickets in last week’s win against Somerset, began with two maidens from the Stuart Broad End before Hameed clipped him for three boundaries in his third over. There was a touch of fortune about the first one, though, which was not too far away from James Wharton at mid-wicket, before the former England batsman drove Cliff nicely through the covers and then more convincingly through mid-wicket.

At the Radcliffe Road End, Ben Coad basically did Ben Coad things, conceding just seven runs in his first five overs. When Jack White and George Hill took over the bowling, a couple of edges fell agonisingly short of the slips.

Yorkshire finally broke through after 90 minutes when the returning Coad had Slater edging off the back foot to Adam Lyth at second slip, breaking the first wicket stand at 48. At lunch, the total was 63-1 from 29 overs, and Nottinghamshire could be pleased with their morning’s efforts.

The game took its first twist when Cliff claimed two wickets with successive balls in the third over after lunch. Ben Martindale and Joe Clarke were both caught at second slip by Lyth as the hosts wobbled to 64-3.

As if to show that not everything Cliff touches at the moment turns to gold, Haynes calmly clipped the hat-trick delivery to the mid-wicket boundary, but the double breakthrough was another indication of Cliff’s wicket-taking threat and the strides he has made.

Haynes, one of the county game’s blossoming players, injected impetus into the innings, while Hameed dropped anchor en route to a half-century from 145 balls with nine fours.

A century seemed his for the taking but Matty Revis and Jonny Bairstow had other ideas, the former finding the outside edge with one that shaped away, the other taking a good tumbling catch to his right. After Hameed’s departure just before tea, Haynes fell not long after, cutting Cliff to Sam Whiteman at cover.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Mitchell Hay and Lyndon James added 51 before Hill had Hay caught behind by Bairstow, one ball after the keeper took a nasty looking blow to his left hand standing up to the stumps.

In the next over, Coad took a smart catch in his follow-through to remove Liam Patterson-White, then Cliff had James lobbing tamely to Coad at mid-on, before White got Brett Hutton with the proverbial strangle.