Stone ramps it up on slow-burn day

JAMES COYNE AT TRENT BRIDGE: We were robbed of the chance to see Broad bowling at Sibley at the start of Warwickshire’s first innings, as the England opener was off the field for a stretch of the day having his finger X-rayed

Of the three out-and-out fasties in the England mix, Olly Stone is still behind both Jofra Archer and Mark Wood in the pecking order if all are fit (and that’s an if). 

As such, Stone has played just two Tests by the age of 27, though England won’t have forgotten how impressive he was in the generally thankless job of enforcer in the second Test against India at Chennai, which somehow seems much longer than two months ago. 

The precarious nature of bowling fast means that, fitness permitting, he will surely be in the reckoning for the Ashes in the winter, and maybe for the Tests this summer too, though home assignments tend to be when Broad and Anderson hold sway, and Chris Woakes and Sam Curran climb up the list due to their swinging of the Dukes. 

There wasn’t masses of swing on offer today in Warwickshire's County Championship match at Trent Bridge, and anyway Stone isn’t really about that. He was basically running in hard and letting it fly, then getting a bit tetchy with the batsmen if they had the temerity to play and miss, or reaching forward out of their crease a bit. 

It’s to combat this kind of stuff first-hand that explains why Hanuma Vihari has been allowed by the BCCI to come over for three Championship games for Warwickshire, with the view of an audition for the marquee Test series this summer. 

On the evidence of his performance today, Stone will be a fearsome proposition for anyone who comes up against him on quicker pitches. And this surface was no slouch, either: as with the opening round of games across most of the country, the groundstaff at Nottingham served up what is a good, bouncy pitch for mid-April, and he gave a few the hurry-up. 

His opening spell was actually his least threatening, and he seemed to get lulled into a bit of a tete-a-tete with his old Northamptonshire team-mate Ben Duckett, which was won by the batsman. But he still took the first wicket of the match, mainly through his sheer slipperiness, as Ben Slater tried to guide a wideish ball and turned it to Sam Hain at second slip.

^{Joe Clarke at the crease for Nottinghamshire}

Stone’s third spell, halfway through the afternoon, was fearsomely fast. Joe Clarke was on 29 and appeared booked in for yet another first-class hundred when Stone got one to rise outside off stump and Clarke fenced it high through to Michael Burgess in front of first slip. It was the kind of wicket fast bowlers visualise in their sleep. 

Clarke is a candidate for the most assured England-qualified batsman not to play Test cricket – and it looked like the kind of day when something out of the ordinary would be needed to remove him. 

His wicket meant Nottinghamshire were up against it on 105 for 5. Their captain, Steven Mullaney, had chosen to bat first – a decision going against type at this time of year, if also reflective of how good the batting surface was. 

On a day lengthened to make up for the Saturday stoppage for Prince Philip’s funeral, Notts did well to recover to 273 all out.

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These are two counties with much to prove in red-ball cricket. Notts, the country’s strongest white-ball side in recent seasons, are in the midst of a run of 28 first-class matches without a win. They would have been in the second-tier of the Championship this year if the ECB had stuck with the two-divisional system. 

Warwickshire, meanwhile, have appointed a new first-team coach, the estimable Mark Robinson, in an attempt to build a new squad after the era of Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott and Jeetan Patel. 

It goes without saying that both counties would like to achieve their missions with a healthy crop of local cricketers, but the realities of their relative financial draw in the midlands and the reality that players move around these days means both have looked beyond their borders in the rebuilding process.

^{Hanuma Vihari took a fine catch on his Warwickshire debut, before falling for a duck}

It didn’t go unnoticed when Mike Atherton said on Sky Sports about Notts last season: “For a big club, they are very poor at producing their own players.” And this is a county, who in a different, industrial age, would whistle down the pit for England’s next fast bowler. So it was encouraging that Notts fielded an entirely homegrown pace attack last week against Durham, even if it was short-lived as Jake Ball and Brett Hutton went down injured. 

Luke Fletcher’s rotation out to make way for two Test seamers in Stuart Broad and Dane Paterson meant Notts were fielding just three genuinely homegrown players in their XI here. Warwickshire had even fewer. 

So it was heartening to see one locally raised lad, Liam Patterson-White, a left-arm spinner and spiky left-handed batsman keeping Samit Patel and Matt Carter out of the side, top-score for Notts today with 73 not out from No.8. His runs have at least given Notts a foothold in the game.

Otherwise this was a day for Will Rhodes, Warwickshire’s captain. His nagging medium-pace generated four wickets from the Radcliffe Road End – two a touch fortuitous, in that Haseeb Hameed and Mullaney looped deliveries to the ring fielders; another was a gem which came back to bowl the left-handed Tom Moores. 

And what of Warwickshire’s other recent arrival from Yorkshire, Tim Bresnan, in the first of a two-year contract at the age of 36? On the day Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack named their Five Cricketers of the Year it seems only right to quote Tanya Aldred’s immortal line when Bresnan himself earned the accolade nine years ago.

Brezzy Lad has never really lost that “air of a man with an emergency cheese sandwich in his back pocket”, but also hasn’t mislaid the wherewithal to have Duckett lbw, the ball after he appealed for a catch down the legside. Bresnan finished with three wickets himself.

^{Stuart Broad was back in county action for Nottinghamshire}

As of today, Dom Sibley is also a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. Sibley tends to field in the slips or at gully in Test cricket, but has been conspicuous by his absence from the Warwickshire cordon so far in 2021. He ventured back in there for a few overs when someone was off the field, dropped one off Bresnan, and was just as quickly out of there.

We were robbed of the chance to see Broad bowling at Sibley at the start of Warwickshire’s first innings, as the England opener was off the field for a stretch of the day having his finger X-rayed and so didn’t bat. Rob Yates came out to open in his stead, but flashed behind to Zak Chappell’s first ball. 

That brought in Vihari at No.3 for his first Championship innings. When Vihari took a wonderful spiralling catch to dismiss Mullaney in the Notts innings, one good judge in the press box said: “His prize for that will be to face Stuart Broad at 7 o’clock under floodlights.” 

At shortly before the close at 7.20pm, sure enough Vihari was gone for a 23-ball duck, caught at slip off Broad, and Warwickshire were 24 for 2. Tough game, this County Championship.

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