Sussex 39 for 3 trail Nottinghamshire 255 (Wood 100, Magoffin 6-109) by 216 runs
Scorecard
By his own admission, Luke Wood has no pedigree as a batsman. The 19-year-old from Worksop is a left-arm seamer by trade and when he made his debut at the end of last season his thoughts were that if he might achieve anything in cricket it would be through his ability with the ball.
He might now have to revise that view a little, having suddenly found himself with a first-class century to his name in only his eighth innings, rescuing Nottinghamshire from a familiar plight with a performance a man of no less experience and judgment than Mick Newell described as "the most remarkable hundred I've seen in first-class cricket".
It was certainly an extraordinary one, given what had gone before and indeed what followed. Put in on another green-tinged result pitch, Nottinghamshire slumped to 38 for 5, their top order blown away by the combined forces of Steve Magoffin and England's Chris Jordan. Under glowering clouds, the Australian Magoffin seemed to have the ball on a string as he reached 30 wickets for the season, dismissing both Taylors - Brendan and James, the latter for a second-ball duck -- and the in-form Riki Wessels.
Jordan dismissed Steven Mullaney and Alex Hales in spectacular style, taking a brilliant diving catch off his own bowling to remove Mullaney and sending two stumps flying with a ball that Hales could only prod at in hope.
Six down for 55 was hardly a recovery and although Will Gidman did a sterling job in taking up the finger-in-the-dyke role customarily performed by the currently injured Chris Read, at 98 for 7 Nottinghamshire's position still looked as bleak as the weather.
At this point emerged young Wood, fresh from a pair in his last match, a catastrophic defeat to Somerset on an even greener pitch, with no greater ambition than to support Gidman in doing what they could to salvage some respectability if nothing else. Yet 23.2 overs later, Nottinghamshire had two batting points and Wood a century from 105 balls with 10 fours and six sixes, an innings buzzing with youthful exuberance yet after a fairly wobbly start constructed with remarkable assuredness.
For good measure, in the chill of the evening before a final burst of rain did for the day, with a third of the overs lost, Nottinghamshire added value to their unexpected success by reducing Sussex to 39 for 3, with Wood taking two of the wickets.
He could have been out several times early on as he flailed the bat in hope, but once he began to feel he might just help the cause with a few meaty blows he began to target the short boundary on the Bridgford Road side of the ground and the bat began to connect rather nicely. A high cut off Matt Hobden from the Radcliffe Road End sailed into the New Stand, and then he went after Magoffin, bowling from the Pavilion End. Gidman fell to the first ball after tea, edging to first slip after a solid 57, after which Jake Ball decided he would join the fun, he too hitting Magoffin into the New Stand and then launching Jordan way over extra cover to clear the longer boundary before a top-edge off Magoffin saw him caught a third man.
But Wood was not done. Remarkably, given that the adrenalin must have been pumping as never before, he managed to score his last 28 runs at nine wickets down and with Harry Gurney, what is known as a genuine No. 11, at the other end. Gurney was in for 25 minutes but did not face a ball as Wood took control, keeping the strike by running singles off the bat or byes to the last ball of every over.
Two sixes in the same Magoffin over took him to 98, at which point Chris Nash, captain with Ed Joyce on Ireland duty, tried something different at last, turning to Luke Wells to bowl spin. It took only four balls to do the trick, but not before Wood had taken the chance to push his third delivery into an open space and scamper two runs, at which point he leaped into the air to celebrate, waving his bat above his head as the crowd stood, the Nottinghamshire team lined up on their balcony and every Sussex player on the field joined in the applause.
Magoffin finished with six wickets but had gone for 109 runs by the time Wood had done with him, half of those scored by the teenager himself.
"In first-class cricket it's the most remarkable hundred I've ever seen," Newell said. "For a kid who got a pair in the last match and when he first went in looked like getting out every ball, to hit it as cleanly as that is remarkable. To hit that many sixes against a high quality attack is incredible."
Wood himself certainly had no idea he was capable of such a feat. "I couldn't see us getting 200 as a team, let alone me getting a hundred," he said. "I've not done a massive amount with the bat before really. I work hard at it and I try to be positive but I've not done anything like that before.
"I didn't really think about the hundred until I was in the 80s and it's been pretty phenomenal how it has turned out. The best feeling I've ever had on a cricket field and to get two wickets at the end has topped it off nicely."
Wood dismissed Mike Yardy and Matt Machan to catches in the slips after Ball had trapped Wells leg before, lifting Nottinghamshire's spirits to unexpected heights. "It was looking pretty gloomy at lunch," Newell said. "We lost a toss we wanted to win and were in danger of feeling sorry for ourselves. But it was a case of good bowling rather than poor batting that put us where we were and had a chat and picked ourselves up."
