WARWICKSHIRE CLASH RESTORES MEMORIES OF BROAD'S 8-53

Having surrendered their unbeaten start to the LV= County Championship season, Nottinghamshire return home to face Warwickshire at Trent Bridge.

Despite the nine wicket defeat at Hove, Mick Newell’s side remain top of the Division One table, although Lancashire sit only two points behind, with a game in hand. Warwickshire currently lie third in the table – having also picked up three victories from their opening five contests. 

Last week’s win over Worcestershire was played on an Edgbaston pitch that was deemed poor however, and the provisional finding of the ECB panel has been to dock the Bears eight points. The club are appealing against that decision.

Previous clashes with Warwickshire throw up a host of memories and a cluster of random statistics from classic encounters, both from a bygone era as well as more recent times.

"Perhaps surprisingly, given the longevity of the fixture, Warwickshire have never reached 500 at Trent Bridge, with Notts only doing it once against their forthcoming opponents, with 514 in 2005."

The sides will meet at Trent Bridge for the 63rd time, with Nottinghamshire leading the head-to-head count-back on the ground by 27 victories to nine, with another 26 matches ending in draws.

The series of matches has featured some of the games outstanding performers, with many of them coming to the fore in this particular clash. Best bowling honours for the visitors came in the very first meeting – way back in 1894 – when James Whitehead claimed eight wickets. In a 58 match career his figures of 41.4-24-47-8 were easily the best he ever achieved.

Nottinghamshire’s best bowling at home to the Bears was achieved by Harold Larwood in 1930  The fearsome quickie grabbed 7-57.  Eighty years later, another Nottinghamshire and England Test bowler did take eight wickets against Warwickshire for the first time but Stuart Broad’s 8-53 last season came at Edgbaston.

Stuart’s father Chris is one of a host of star names to record a century in the fixture. His 104 came in 1992 and was preceded and emulated by the likes of Tim Robinson (207 in 1983), Derek Randall (113 a year later), Paul Johnson (120* in 1995) and Darren Bicknell’s 167 in 2001.

Bicknell’s effort came a year after he and Guy Welton put on an unbroken 406 for the first wicket at Edgbaston – a ground record.

Current Notts skipper Chris Read has enjoyed the fixture with centuries in 1999 (160) and also in 2009 (110) whilst his absence in 2006 enabled David Alleyne to score a career-high 106, as well as picking up a tally of nine dismissals in the match.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the longevity of the fixture, Warwickshire have never reached 500 at Trent Bridge, with Notts only doing it once against their forthcoming opponents, with 514 in 2005. 

That game, six years ago featured David Hussey’s, 232, the first of his three  ‘double-tons’ for Nottinghamshire.

The Australian’s haul is the highest individual score a Notts player has ever amassed against the West Midland county at Trent Bridge, although Warwickshire’s Rohan Kanhai did even better in 1968.

His 253 came in a stand of 402 for the fourth wicket with Khalid Ibadulla, a first class record at Trent Bridge. Kanhai, one of the West Indies all-time greats, clearly enjoyed batting in West Bridgford as he also recorded centuries on two other visits with his county – 105 in 1970 and 114 in 1973.

A number of players have turned out for both counties in the series of meetings. The likes of Deryck Murray, Eddie Hemmings, Dilip Doshi and Anurag Singh have also represented previous or future employers, as has Mark Wagh, who will be hoping to add another century over the next few days to the one he scored on his old stamping ground last July.

Wagh’s team-mate Paul Franks has an extra-special reason for remembering the 1997 clash as he took a hat-trick in Warwickshire’s first innings. Trevor Penney was first to go, caught behind by Wayne Noon and then both Dougie Brown and Graeme Welch were clean-bowled.

Last year Notts won inside 2 days as Warwickshire were made to follow-on 207 behind and were then rolled over again for 152. Ryan Sidebottom took 8 of the 20 wickets to fall, with Andre Adams getting seven and Paul Franks the other 5.

There are a number of personal milestones to look out for this week amongst the Notts players, assuming they are selected.

Adam Voges is in line to play the 100^th first class match of his career. Currently he has scored 1926 runs for Notts.

Andre Adams collected the 500^th first class wicket of his career last week at Hove and has claimed 94 of them at Trent Bridge.

Paul Franks is homing in on a number of milestones. He now has 488 first class wickets, 447 of them at Trent Bridge and has also collected 49 first class catches for Notts.

Chris Read needs 4 more dismissals to reach 650 for Notts, with his total now standing at 615 catches and 31 stumpings. The Notts’ captain has batted 149 times at Trent Bridge and has scored 4995 runs here at an average of 39.6, with ten centuries.

Luke Fletcher has 28 first class wickets this season already (including the fixtures v MCC and Oxford MCCU), one behind his personal best of 29 in 2009 although he will be rested for this fixture.

Dave Bracegirdle will provide ball-by-ball commentary throughout Nottinghamshire's LV= County Championship match against Warwickshire on behalf of BBC Radio Nottingham.