Carter's great return worsens Notts' plight

Hampshire 319 (Wheater 102, McManus 56, Wood 3-53) and 106 for 1 lead Nottinghamshire 245 by 180 runs
Scorecard

Discovering Nottinghamshire hanging around at the wrong end of the First Division is like finding the flash guy with the top-of-the-range BMW drinking in the cheapest pub in town. No matter how much you remind yourself he is loaded you can't avoid noticing in the corner of your eye the unexpected scrambling for enough change for another bag of pork scratchings.

Nottinghamshire are heading for Twenty20 finals day on Saturday. Among the most glamorous of county cricket's limited-overs side they finally have a chance to claim a T20 trophy that has long seemed overdue. But four-day cricket is a less endearing story. It is entirely possible they could go to Edgbaston uncomfortably placed at the bottom of the Championship.

Midway through this match, Hampshire lead by 180 with nine second-innings wickets intact, a position made more secure in the final session by Jimmy Adams' unbeaten 68."The plan now is bat and bat," said Liam Dawson. "We'll look to bat all day and see where it takes us." They might be bottom but that they have the capacity to grind out a batting day is beyond doubt.

A Hampshire victory would send them above Notts in the table. Such an outcome would not just cause shivers in the East Midlands. Hampshire have long presumed to be relegation fodder and a victory would cause consternation for Surrey, Lancashire and Durham. Suddenly, the First Division relegation outcome would look likely to be contested deep into September.

Quite how Nottinghamshire succumbed for 245, 74 behind on first innings, must have been a mystery for their combative captain, Chris Read, whose counter-attacking, unbeaten 70, full of attractive off-side drives, prevented total calamity. It was Family Fun day at Trent Bridge but only Read seemed to want to do much colouring in. He seems to have been staving off Nottinghamshire collapses for a lifetime and, by rights, his boyish dash should have been exhausted years ago.

To make matters worse, Nottinghamshire's morning collapse, in which they lost five for 77 in decent batting conditions, was engineered by Andy Carter, whose gangling pace bowling used to be at Notts' service until he rejected a new contract and decamped to Derbyshire at the end of last season, only to abandon that in disgust after half a season because of his lack of Championship opportunities to join Hampshire, who at that point had so many injured fast bowlers they were almost reduced to looking for solutions in a Tesco bargain bucket.

Read considered a bad day with consummate understatement. One day he will surely crack, grab everybody by the throat and promptly announce his retirement. Until then he merely said: "It was a disappointing morning session and ultimately, although it was a good fightback to get to 245, we were somewhat lacking in first innings' runs.

"Andy Carter bowled nicely. We all like Andy here at Notts and we've fond memories of his time with us. Unfortunately for us he chose this moment to bowl a good opening spell. We've not batted well all season; it's one area we are trying to improve. We are working exceptionally hard behind the scenes to put things right but again we came unstuck."

Hampshire went into the match with only Ryan McLaren taking his Championship wickets under 40s, but Carter's debut gave them a bowler eminently capable of a hot spell or two, his Derbyshire return of six wickets for 73.33 best overlooked. An incisive pre-lunch spell underlined that as he removed three former team-mates for six runs in 12 deliveries.

The nightwatchman, Jake Ball, hit his first delivery to Adam Wheater at midwicket, Riki Wessels found a bouncer from a former team-mate irresistible and holed out, fourth ball, at deep square leg, and Steven Mullaney chopped a rising delivery onto his stumps. Wessels has had an eye-catching one-day season and strange things can happen to an attacking player met by an old team-mate who bangs one in and suggests: "Go on then, try to hit that for old time's sake."

When you need to dig in, Brendon Taylor is not your man. Neither does he immediately strike you as the sort of high-profile signing you want in a relegation battle. Since abandoning an unpredictable international career with Zimbabwe for the security of county cricket, he has produced the occasional destructive innings alongside rather too many lax dismissals to earn admiration in his new homeland.

He fell to a good catch by Mason Crane at midwicket, off Gareth Berg, and soon afterwards Notts were 91 for 6 when Samit Patel was lbw, struck on the boot by Brad Wheal and hobbled off. He was the hero of Notts' NatWest Blast quarter-final win and the crowd rose to him with great fondness, which was nice to see, but the sense will forever remain that it is impossible for Samit to cross the road without the intervention of a couple of moments of tragi-comedy.

That left Read to find support from Michael Lumb - a restrained innings ending when he edged an attempted pull and became a fourth wicket for Carter - and some tail-end spanking from Luke Wood and, more unexpectedly, Imran Tahir, helped by a missed stumping off Dawson. Wood was unhinged by a short ball from McLaren which deflected off bat and helmet. Carter's simple catch in the leg-side allowed Dawson to wrap up the innings with wickets in successive balls. Hampshire are still kicking for all they are worth.