Chris Read, the Nottinghamshire captain, paid tribute to the influence of Peter Moores, the former England head coach, after his side had beaten Warwickshire and the weather to secure a fourth win in five LV=County Championship matches.
Nottinghamshire were facing a fight against relegation and underachieving in one-day cricket when Moores was appointed as a coaching consultant at the end of June. Since then they have won 12 out of 15 completed matches in all competitions and moved into third place in the first division.
“As Mick Newell [Nottinghamshire’s director of cricket] said at the time, we needed some fresh ideas, some fresh impetus and, having a coach of his experience twiddling his thumbs a few miles down the road, it was an obvious choice to ask him if he’d like to help out,” Read said.
“It’s hard for someone of his pedigree not to be an influence. We brought him in as an extra pair of hands, but also to bring his wealth of coaching experience to the dressing room. The way he has worked one-to-one with the players has been magnificent and a lot of our top-order batsmen have benefited from that.
“He has also worked hard at getting our fielding better and more intense and from my point of view he’s another set of ears to talk to about tactical matters and the nature of pitches and teams around the country. His knowledge is immense.”
Advertisement
There is certainly a new vibrancy about Nottinghamshire who still had a lot of work to do when Warwickshire began the day needing 298 runs to avoid an innings defeat. England and Australia please note. Fittingly the rearguard action was led by William Porterfield, the acting captain who had put Nottinghamshire in, and seen them score 600. He seemed determined to make amends in more than four hours of resistance.
Jake Ball and Brett Hutton, two home-grown seamers, had made early inroads into the Warwickshire batting but it was Samit Patel who proved the match-winner with his left-arm spin as the sky darkened, the floodlights beamed down and the umpires checked their light meters.
Patel took four for 23 in 22.1 overs, including the wicket of Porterfield, who had made 61 when the ball rolled agonisingly back into his stumps from his defensive shot, and though Rikki Clarke defied Nottinghamshire for 129 minutes, there were still more than 12 overs left when Patel took the final wicket.
It was a hard-earned victory set up by Alex Hales’s 189 that reopened the debate about whether he should be England’s next Test opener. Read is in no doubt. “He’s a fantastic cricketer,” he said.” I see it in white-ball and red-ball cricket.”