Nottinghamshire 393 for 7 (Hales 222*, Taylor 59) v Yorkshire
Scorecard
On the day when cricket writers hightailed it to Cardiff to assess a batsman who would seem to have little prospect of playing for England again, Nottinghamshire's Alex Hales made a persuasive case that those scribes would have been better advised motoring up the M1 and watching him instead.
Batting against champions Yorkshire, whose thumping innings victory against his side to clinch the title last September still fires him up, Hales made a career-best 222 not out off 250 balls as Chris Read's batsmen piled up 393 runs in 95.1 overs. And Hales' pleasure may, if anything, have been increased by the fact that his team had been asked to have first knock on a Trent Bridge pitch which offered early help but not too much more. Yorkshire's bowlers paid dearly for their failure take only two wickets in a first session when the ball was new and the cloud cover so pronounced that the floodlights were pressed into service.
There were other respects in which Hales' double-century was quite as well timed as many of his cover drives. Last week he admitted to feeling that he had never had "a proper crack" at international cricket; on the opening day of the County Championship season at Trent Bridge he played an innings whose dominance suggested he might yet be worth a try in the longer form of the game, let alone the shorter versions in which he has established his reputation.
Coming to the wicket after Steven Mullaney was lbw to Steven Patterson for 27 in the 12th over of the morning, Hales took time to assess the conditions and gauge the potency of Yorkshire's bowlers. This was no sort of 20-over thrash on a drop-in pitch with boundaries brought in and the fielding side hobbled by the rules. Rather, Hales watched carefully from the other end as 17-year-old Matthew Fisher took a wicket with his seventh ball in Championship cricket when Brendan Taylor's careless drive only edged the ball to the very safe hands of Alex Lees at slip.
That wicket fell with the home side on 77 but any impression that the morning's rewards had been shared when Nottinghamshire lunched on 105 for 2 were misleading. Andrew Gale's attack had already been given their best chance of doing serious damage but neither Tim Bresnan nor Jack Brooks had pitched the ball up in the devastating fashion they had managed at New Road only five days previously.
In the afternoon session the Nottinghamshire batsmen gained the rewards for their caution. Hales went to his fifty with a perfectly-executed back foot cover-drive off Patterson and Taylor cut Brooks for another fine boundary. When Jack Leaning's offspin was tried, Hales milked it for a couple of boundaries and whacked his only six over long off. Gale was soon forced to bring back the seamers.
It made little difference. Taylor notched his fifty and then Hales reached his century off 131 balls, the second fifty runs being scored off only 38 balls. When Fisher bowled a fine outswinger he got inside the line and clipped through wide mid-on. Suddenly the young man was receiving a rather rough introduction to top-level domestic cricket.
Late in the second session Yorkshire gained relief from their torment when Brooks brought one back off the seam to have Taylor lbw for 59 and then immediately had Samit Patel taken by Lees, who is developing into one of the safest slips on the circuit. These successes will have buoyed Yorkshire's bowlers but the course of the day's cricket had been set by that third-wicket stand of 171 in 35 overs. You don't generally regard a score of 252 for 4 as an adequate reward when you have put the opposition in.
The final session of the day saw Hales continue his progress in pleasingly ruthless fashion and it will have been greatly enjoyed by the crowd which had filled much of the Radcliffe Road Stand at least half an hour before play began. Fleeced and Playfaired, they resumed conversations which they had merely suspended seven months previously. Those home spectators remembered last September's annihilation, too.
Hales added 81 runs in the evening and reached his 200 off 234 balls but he also lost three of his partners as Yorkshire's bowlers discovered accuracy with the second new ball they had rarely shown with the first. Riki Wessels, Chris Read and Will Gidman were all dismissed relatively cheaply, reinforcing the impression that Nottinghamshire are well ahead in this game.
The last wicket, that of Gidman, was claimed by Patterson who finished with 2 for 58 from 22.1 overs. The Beverley seamer was the best of Gale's bowlers on this first day, for he achieved a prudent economy which contrasted with the prodigality of some of his colleagues.
Indeed, it comes as no great shock to discover that the accurate Patterson would choose a career in finance were he not to be a cricketer. One can rather imagine him celebrating Yorkshire's Championship last September with an extra session of double-entry book-keeping.
Steven Patterson, you see, does not frivol. But neither, clearly, does Alex Hales. Asked whether he hoped that his innings would send a message to the England selectors, he remarked succinctly: "I hope it does". He can probably relax on the first evening of this game, secure in the knowledge that his communication has been received, even by those negotiating traffic-jams on the M4.
