The first match may have ended in a soggy draw but the sides generated enough excitement to suggest this series will provide a welcome advert for Test cricket
The batsman hit the bowler straight back over his head, a sweetly timed, powerfully struck shot that surely ranked among the biggest seen in these conditions. It will never be known how far it might have travelled – a six surely, but into the stands or out of the stadium? – because of the wall in the way. As it was, the ball bounced off brick and into the outstretched hand of the fielder standing in a position that somehow combined silly mid-off with long-off. One hand one bounce. The batter was gone.
It was the best action the spectators got all day at Trent Bridge. For most of Sunday – excluding two tantalising patches of sunshine – the wet conditions confined the optimistic fans who stuck around to whatever shelter they could find. Umbrellas, awnings and bars came into play – even the huddled trio of chairs under the stairwell in the Radcliffe Road Stand known as the Hadlee Waiting Area, long assumed to be an existential joke understood only by the Notts faithful. And here, on the concourse, where a man called Sunit had constructed a wicket from rucksacks and got the passing kids playing with a soft ball and a plastic bat.
