It is a result that goes a long way towards ensuring Notts will not follow last season’s championship triumph with the embarrassment of dropping out of the top flight just a year later. But for Middlesex the prospect is much bleaker.
Add this desperate drubbing to last Tuesday’s Pro40 defeat at the hands of the same opponents and it leaves them to ponder the horrid possibility of dropping out of the top division of both competitions. They have played one more than those around them in the championship and have only one game left, a trip to Kent, which they must win.
Middlesex have rejected speculation that Craig Spearman is to arrive from Gloucestershire to take over the captaincy next season from the beleaguered Ben Hutton, but these are troubled times at Lord’s.
Hutton did demonstrate his commitment, albeit in a lost cause, by resuming his innings yesterday despite a badly bruised elbow that had forced him to retire hurt on Friday. But he could do little to bar Notts’ advance, adding 19 to his overnight eight before being caught at slip by his opposite number, Stephen Fleming, off Andy Harris. That came soon after Chris Peploe had presented Charlie Shreck with a sixth victim of the match with a top-edged attempt at a pull.
Johann Louw and the two Chrises, Wright and Silverwood, bludgeoned some meaningless late defiance and it was left to David Hussey to finish a contest that had been one-sided from start to finish. The Australian bowled Louw with his part-time off-spin and then had Silverwood caught by Shreck at long-on a quarter of an hour before lunch.
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