Yorkshire driving into stalemate
IT is difficult to get anywhere in Nottingham at present due to major roadworks taking place near the Broadmarsh Centre.
Some roads leading to Trent Bridge have been gridlocked due to a £250m project to transform the area around the famous shopping complex, with the road disruption that started in June not due to finish until later this month.
Similarly, it has been difficult to get anywhere in this County Championship match, which has felt at times to be stuck in traffic. A combination of a benign pitch, a pair of depleted bowling attacks and some belligerent batting on both sides has made for a slowburner of a contest that has yet to – and most probably never will – come to the boil.
Should it not do so, then neither team are likely to feel unhappy to the extent that they would hoot their metaphorical car horns in fury.
A draw would suit Notts – who appear to have deliberately prepared a surface to help facilitate that outcome to ease their faint relegation fears – and it would certainly suit Yorkshire, who went into the game second-bottom of the table.
The loss of 66 overs to rain on day three hardly boosted hopes of a positive outcome, Yorkshire advancing from 258-4 overnight to 357-5 in reply to Notts’ own first innings 448.
Unless the pitch changes character dramatically on day four, or the cricket unexpectedly explodes into life, then the spoils will be shared, with Yorkshire needing 43 runs in seven overs to secure maximum batting points.
Even though the game itself has struggled to catch fire, there have still been plenty of points of interest.
Perhaps the most notable from Yorkshire’s perspective is the prospect of a maiden Championship hundred for them by Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who increased his overnight 57 to 92, made from 214 balls with 10 fours.
Nicknamed “Pepsi” for reasons that will no doubt become clear if one contemplates the first part of his double-barrelled surname, Kohler-Cadmore packs plenty of fizz into his batting.
The 24-year-old has proved it plenty of times in white-ball cricket and is no mean prospect in the red-ball game either, this innings following his previous Championship-best for Yorkshire of 81 against Somerset last week.
Playing his sixth Championship match since signing from Worcestershire in the middle of last year, Kohler-Cadmore has had to wait for his four-day chances this season.
Initially, the likes of Alex Lees and Jack Leaning were preferred after Harry Brook presented an irrefutable case, and then an England Lions call-up spirited Kohler-Cadmore away just when he had pushed his claims through weight of runs in the Royal London Cup.
Kohler-Cadmore admitted that his Lions call-up was bittersweet, so keen was he to progress in Championship cricket, although his elevation to Yorkshire’s fourday side was, in reality, just a matter of time.
Notable in this match has been the patience that he has shown just when Yorkshire needed it most; indeed, there have been too many collapses in recent seasons for them to have taken anything for granted – even a follow-on target of 299 on a largely docile deck.
There was still a slim chance that Notts could have ejected them for less than that score when play began yesterday in overcast conditions.
But any hope that Notts had of taking the last six wickets for 40 runs or fewer, thereby giving themselves the option of reinserting, were emphatically dashed by Kohler-Cadmore and Jonny Tattersall, who resumed a partnership already worth 26.
Tattersall, the 23-year-old wicketkeeper, looked in the mood for further enjoyment, cutting the left-arm spin of Samit Patel for four and then driving Mark Footitt to the mid-on boundary.
Notts took the new ball 10 overs in, Tattersall leaning on a full delivery from Footitt that he sent scurrying away between cover and point before Kohler-Cadmore emphatically pulled Footitt to raise the 300.
The hosts then dropped Tattersall twice in quick succession: first, on 30, when the Notts captain Steven Mullaney grassed him at second slip at chest height off Luke Wood, and then on 38 when Wood got a right hand to a difficult shoulder-high chance in the gully when Tattersall went after a wide half-volley from Footitt that still flew for four.
Tattersall eventually fell for 51 on the stroke of lunch, caught low down by Tom Moores off Harry Gurney, the wicketkeeper strangely taking it one handed when it was only slightly to his right.
Only three overs were possible after the break, leaving centurion-in-waiting KohlerCadmore with the prospect of a sleepless night – if perhaps not those spectators who venture for the climax.