Ball hat-trick rocks Middlesex after Finn’s four
Nottinghamshire 241: Patel 100; Finn 4-54, Rayner 3-46
Middlesex 9-3: Malan 4*, Gubbins 3*; Ball 3-2
Close, day one: Middlesex trail Nottinghamshire by 232 runs
Nottinghamshire’s Jake Ball took a hat-trick in the first over of Middlesex’s first innings as the County Championship title race took a fresh twist at Trent Bridge.
Ball, a contender for England’s winter tour, removed Sam Robson, Ollie Rayner and Nick Compton in successive deliveries to leave the Division One leaders on 9-3 at stumps.
Earlier, a century from Samit Patel helped take Nottinghamshire from 117-5 to 241 all out.
Steven Finn took 4-54 and Rayner 3-46 after the visitors opted to bowl on a cloudy morning.
They made an early breakthrough, with Jake Libby nicking Tim Murtagh to first slip in the third over, while Finn bowled Tom Moores – son of incoming Notts head coach Peter – and had Steven Mullaney smartly snaffled by Rayner.
Michael Lumb (23) and Brendan Taylor (30) repaired the early damage with a stand of 31 either side of lunch, but both perished to rather different catches.
Lumb punched a backfoot drive off Rayner into the midriff of Nick Gubbins at silly point, while Taylor was squared up by a Toby Roland-Jones delivery and Gubbins slid in to take the catch.
Patel put on 49 with Chris Read and 38 with Brett Hutton, and the all-rounder used the second new ball to his advantage, reaching his second hundred of the summer from 137 balls.
He perished just after reaching the landmark, clipping Finn to deep square leg before Murtagh wrapped up the innings.
Despite the later-order runs, Middlesex would have been confident of overhauling 241 – but by the end of the first over they were requiring damage limitation.
