Old dog, new county: Graham Onions relishes arrival as Lancashire match-winner

Lancashire 338 (Jennings 126, Davies 50, Broad 4-41) beat Nottinghamshire 133 and 138 (Onions 6-55, Anderson 4-26) by an innings and 67 runs
Scorecard

When it comes to conversations in cars heading out of Greater Manchester, Peter Kay's Car Share has a monopoly on all the best lines. But if Lancashire raise a Championship challenge this season perhaps Graham Onions and Keaton Jennings will look back on their own chat en route to Trent Bridge.

Although a calamitous batting collapse had consigned them to defeat in their opening match against Nottinghamshire at Old Trafford, Onions and Jennings concluded that Lancashire had not done too much wrong since. A return encounter offered the chance to remedy matters - and, for two former Durham professionals, it was an ideal opportunity to establish themselves as matchwinners for the Red Rose.

That task has been accomplished, and how so. Onions, whose career-best figures of 9 for 67 came on this ground for Durham in 2012, took 6 for 55 in Notts' second innings, and 9 for 77 in the match, and as craftily as he made use of encouraging seam-bowling conditions, one of county cricket's greybeards has the nous to recognise that some of those wickets were carelessly donated. Jake Libby's three-hour 46 made him the exception.

First win as @LancsCCC players. Tastes bloody beautiful. Special mention to @JetJennings pic.twitter.com/88G523x1tT

— Graham Onions (@BunnyOnions) May 13, 2018

The stand-out batsman in the match though, was Jennings, whose 126 in Lancashire's first innings was composed and judicious, exemplifying the considered approach which he gives to his cricket. If an England return might be viewed as premature, it seems inevitable that an opportunity will eventually come to add to his six Test caps - the last of them won against South Africa at Old Trafford last summer.

Their car-share chat, though, was about Lancashire, not England. "We travelled together a few days ago and we said how good it would be for us to succeed and it kind of worked out that way with Keaton getting a hundred and me getting nine wickets in the match," Onions said. "Keaton's innings was pretty special on a tricky wicket to bat on against a very good attack.

"Last week on a very good wicket he batted beautifully and his tempo was great. His innings was better purely because the wicket was doing enough to keep the bowler interested. What he has shown is that he has learned a lot from his past England days. His mentality has got stronger and he backs himself. The Test matches he played were against a very good South African side and without a doubt he is knocking on the door."

Lancashire needed only 65 minutes of play on the third morning of their match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge to claim their first Championship victory of the season, cutting Nottinghamshire's lead to 16 points - or one victory - in the process.

The margin, as Notts were dismissed for 138, was an innings and 67 runs, made a mockery of a table in which Notts lay top and Lancashire seventh and amplified the feeling that this Championship season could be as compact as a fully-squeezed concertina.

Resuming five-down and with a deficit of 99, Nottinghamshire's sixth-wicket pairing of Libby and Tom Moores were parted inside the first half an hour of the day when Moores wafted at a wide one from Onions, who backed it up by gaining an lbw verdict against a disbelieving Stuart Broad.

James Anderson sent Luke Fletcher on his way for a second-ball duck and then had Libby ninth out, lbw. Onions, appropriately, delivered the winning moment to his new side by having Jake Ball caught in the deep by Steven Croft.

"We've done a lot of good things this season but we were completely outplayed by Notts in the first week of the season, so we've come here wanting to show them how good we are," he said. "Collectively, we've done some good things and we just have to keep that going now."

So Lancashire's hellish start to the season is over. Hell, of course, is many different things to different people. As Kayleigh said in Car Share: "The only hell I know is standing in the middle of an aisle trying to get people to sample my Mini Cheddars."