Lancashire CCC's attack dominates the opening day

Graham Onions and James Anderson combined to put Lancashire in a strong position on the opening day of their Specsavers County Championship match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.
Lancashire's Alex DaviesLancashire's Alex Davies
Lancashire's Alex Davies

Onions took 3-22 and Anderson 2-27 as Notts were bowled out for just 133 in 47.1 overs.

Tom Bailey also excelled, returning figures of 3-28, after the visitors had opted to bowl first.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In reply, Alex Davies scored 50 and Keaton Jennings was unbeaten on 52 as Lancs closed on 157-4, a lead of 24.

Onions, whose career-best figures of 9-67 were achieved at Trent Bridge in his Durham days, needed only five deliveries to make his mark, having Steven Mullaney caught at slip in the second over of the day.

The scalps of Chris Nash and Ross Taylor, who failed to score, soon followed, and when Jake Libby (34) fell to the final ball of the morning, the hosts were 80-4.

Anderson conceded only 11 in his initial eight-over burst and England’s record wicket-taker tore a hole right through the home team’s middle order at the start of the second session.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Both Riki Wessels and Tom Moores were pressurised into edging behind and Stuart Broad was dropped from consecutive nicks into the slip cordon before falling to Bailey for 20.

Anderson, who went into this match with a career record of 67 first-class wickets on the ground, was also on hand to whip off the bails to run out Samit Patel, who made 27 before getting into a mix-up with Moores.

Bailey brought the innings to a swift conclusion by removing both Jake Ball and Luke Fletcher cheaply.

The Red Rose began their reply in mid-afternoon with Davies putting on 77 for the first wicket with Jennings.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Davies romped to his half-century from 39 balls, with nine fours, but he undid all that good work from the next delivery by playing all around Fletcher and was comprehensively bowled.

When the sides met at Old Trafford last month Lancashire lost all 10 wickets for 24 runs in their second innings.

Thoughts turned to that collapse when Haseeb Hameed failed to get off the mark before deflecting Fletcher down the legside to wicketkeeper Moores, who then took an even better catch to remove Livingstone off Harry Gurney’s bowling.

Mullaney, prevented from bowling by a slight side strain for the last three matches, snared his first wicket of the season by trapping Shivnarine Chanderpaul LBW for 23.

Jennings’ half-century arrived from a patient 126 deliveries and he had added 14 with Dane Vilas for the fifth wicket when bad light forced an early stoppage, five overs early.