By Geoffrey Dean at Ilford
First day of four: Notts 288-7 v Essex
RUN-SCORING has been a problem this season for Notts who, before yesterday, had managed only four batting bonus points in five games. This was their highest total so far, but they will be disappointed after laying the basis for a large score on a typically good Valentine Park pitch.
Essex, who bowled too many four-balls in the first two sessions, fought back tenaciously after tea. Notts were apparently cruising at 226 for three when Ashley Cowan produced a nasty lifter to glove Graeme Archer. That ended a 120-run fourth-wicket stand and, not long after, Ronnie Irani took a superlative catch at third man to remove Paul Johnson after running nearly 20 yards to do his best imitation of David Seaman.
Johnson (95 from 170 balls) was aghast at his dismissal, knowing he had thrown away the chance of a first championship century for two years. But he had married application with flamboyance, particularly in the afternoon session when the Essex seamers unsuccessfully tried to frustrate him out by bowling a foot outside off-stump to him. Between lunch and tea, he crept from 27 to 48.
Johnson's first six scoring strokes had been fours, and throughout he hit a high proportion of his runs in boundaries - 17 in all, the majority from cuts and pulls. Still one of the finest players of spin in England, he seized on to anything pitched remotely short by Peter Such.
While Johnson battered boundary boards with the power of his back-foot play, Archer drove beautifully, hitting a spectator on the head with a six from a pick-up. The man later returned, bandaged up but still cheerful.
Archer, like the top three Notts batsmen, was caught in the slips. There was not much playing and missing, however, for only Mark Ilott got any swing, and the pitch offered little movement.
Day2: Law sweeps up the Notts bowling again
By Geoffrey Dean at Ilford
Second day of four: Essex (230-7) trail Notts (342) by 112 runs
IT WAS Nottinghamshire's day, but the small crowd present will take away memories of another special hundred from Stuart Law and the first of what should be many fifties for Ian Flanagan.
Law continued his love affair with the Nottinghamshire bowling. Last year, he collared it with a century at Worksop, adding 49 off 33 balls in the NatWest quarter-finals, and yesterday he was similarly pernicious, particularly in his second fifty which came at quicker than a run-a-ball. ``He would score runs against us with a broom handle,'' said the Nottinghamshire team manager, Alan Ormrod.
Law had to see off the new ball after the lively Paul Franks had taken two wickets in his second over. He had some early good fortune, being beaten several times, notably by Andy Oram, but soon he was leaning into off drives in his effortless way and clipping dreamily off his legs. Nor was it long before he started to hit respectable deliveries on the up for four. He collected many of his 19 boundaries in this manner.
Nottinghamshire were just about at their wits' end when Law, having made 106 out of the 152-run stand with Flanagan, drove Usman Afzaal absent-mindedly to long off. Thereafter it became a different game as the Essex middle order struggled against some well directed bowling.
The bespectacled Flanagan, who turns 18 today, benefited from his left-handedness. But he played superbly off his pads and showed remarkable discipline, batting 65 overs.
Day 3: Peters' 64 gives hope to Essex
By Geoffrey Dean at Ilford
Third day of four: Notts (342 & 173-4) lead Essex (322) by 193 runs
TEA had to be extended by 30 minutes yesterday after an ambulance was forced to park itself inside the boundary of the cramped Valentines Park ground. An 85-year-old man suffered a suspected stroke just before the interval and had to be given treatment before the vehicle could move. The lost time was made up after the scheduled close.
Excitement from watching the cricket could not have been the cause of the unfortunate spectator's collapse. It was a grim, attritional day's play throughout with only 265 runs scored on a decent cricket wicket.
Essex, who did well to squeeze 92 from their last three wickets, will take heart from Stephen Peters' maiden first-class fifty, a very different innings to his hundred in last winter's Youth World Cup final. He played and missed umpteen times against a second new ball which swung and seamed, but maintained his equilibrium admirably to survive for just over four hours.
Peters scored the vast majority of his 64 on the leg side, pulling Paul Strang for three of his seven fours. A plucky Mark Ilott helped him add 83 for the ninth wicket.
Despite the fact that the pitch offered turn only out of the rough, Notts were pinned back by Peter Such's long spell. After a strokeless Usman Afzaal was beautifully taken at slip, Paul Johnson tried to break free, but fell in the same over in which he had just hit three fours. Graeme Archer's positive fifty contrasted with Tim Robinson's painstaking one.
Day 4: Essex hopes falter
By Geoffrey Dean at Ilford
Final day of four: Essex v Nottinghamshire
ALTHOUGH they made their highest score of the season in the first innings, Essex reverted to type in the second. Set 300 in 73 overs, they struggled to 121 for four off 37 overs at tea, reproducing the lack of form that has plagued their summer and left them propping up the rest of the championship.
Before this round of matches, Hampshire were the only other team not to have won a four-day contest.
Stuart Law's brilliant hundred on Thursday was the first for the county by any player in the championship this year, but after the Australian was fourth out at 70, hopes of victory seemed to have been irreparably dashed.
On a good cricket wicket, which had some bounce and life, Notts bowled well, notably two relatively inexperienced young seamers, Andy Oram and Mark Bowen. Paul Franks also impressed over the course of the match, showing why Dennis Lillee had professed himself pleased with the teenager's progress in the last year. Notts sent Franks to Lillee's fast bowling academy in Madras in March 1997 and then again 12 months later.
Typically for a club who seem never to overreact, preferring quietly to get on with things, captain Paul Prichard played down his top order's lack of runs. He has been badly missed with shin splints, having been out for six weeks, but runs have not been forthcoming from the senior batsmen.
For all his one-day productivity, Darren Robinson has not scored heavily in first-class cricket; nor has Paul Grayson, whose sole fifty this year came in the championship opener at Worcester. Between them in this match, the pair made a total of six runs, and even Law, until Thursday, had been well below his best.
Prichard points out that pitches this year have not made it easy for his batsmen and injuries have deprived the side of key bowlers. Peter Such was missing for most of May with a rib strain and Ashley Cowan was sidelined with a side strain for a similar period.
Both bowled decent spells here with Such picking up a five-wicket haul yesterday on a pitch that only turned out of the footmarks.
Encouragement for Essex in this match has at least come in the form of maiden championship fifties for the left-handed opener, Ian Flanagan, and Stephen Peters. Both showed impressive application and discipline for teenagers, without ever playing fluently on the offside.