Nottinghamshire 350 (Slater 100, Moores 94, Singh 4-87) and 372 for 6 dec (Slater 87, Young 87, Clarke 73) beat Kent 316 (Finch 73, Harrison 4-28) and 85 (Paterson 5-41, Hutton 4-44) by 321 runs
Paterson finished with 5 for 41 in 10 overs, while Hutton’s 4 for 44 allowed him to celebrate a 50-wicket season for the first time in his first-class career, giving him 52 so far. Kent skipper Jack Leaning’s 21 was a paltry top score as Kent, theoretically chasing 407 to win from 72 overs, were dismissed in just 21.3 overs.
The result gives Nottinghamshire 22 points, which is probably enough to ensure they remain in Division One for another season after being promoted in 2022.
Slater, his eyes on a second hundred in the match, fell to the fifth ball of the day, unable to add to his overnight score, but otherwise Nottinghamshire’s plans on how to set up a run chase could not have gone better.
If anything, they went too well, the scoreboard turning so rapidly that skipper Steven Mullaney might well have had to think again about when to declare given the overs left in the match. When he did decide the moment was right, some 196 runs had been added in just 78 minutes following Nottinghamshire’s resumption on 176 for 1.
Of those, 114 came off just 77 balls in a blistering third-wicket stand between New Zealand’s Young, who made 87 in the last innings of his brief attachment to the county, and Clarke, whose 73 from 40 balls would have felt like the perfect preparation for his upcoming stint with Welsh Fire in the Hundred.
Clarke hit three sixes, matching Young’s tally of maximums in half the number of balls, and there were a couple each for Mullaney and Lyndon James, who hammered 42 in 18 balls for the sixth wicket before Mullaney’s dismissal, bowled aiming to inflict more damage in an Arafat Bhuiyan over that had already gone for 20, prompted the declaration.
Eventually caught at deep midwicket, Clarke should have gone for 26 but Arshdeep Singh, in his final outing for Kent, dropped a regulation catch at mid-off. Joey Evison, the disappointed bowler and Clarke’s former Trent Bridge team-mate, was only too aware of how costly that mistake might be.
Like Clarke, Young and Tom Moores were caught in the deep going for big returns as Nottinghamshire ultimately pushed the Kent target beyond 400, which was never likely to be a realistic ask of a side lacking so many front-line batters through injuries and international calls.
Yet draw still looked within their capabilities and the rapid unravelling of that possibility came as a surprise.
In the eight overs before lunch, their top three all departed. Toby Albert copped a beauty from Hutton to fall for a fourth-ball duck, Ben Geddes fell victim to a fine, rapid-reaction catch by Slater at short leg off Paterson and Ben Compton was leg before to a swinging ball as the South African celebrated his second success.
Lunch did nothing to stiffen Kent’s resolve, with Harry Finch soon leg before as Hutton claimed his 50th of the season, before Leaning was caught behind off a bottom edge to make it 59 for 5.
Paterson had Evison caught low down at third slip and Matt Quinn on the boundary as a merrily brief innings ended with a top-edged pull. Alex Blake knew his fate immediately as he saw Mullaney readying himself for the catch as he heaved Hutton over midwicket and Arshdeep, having launched Paterson for six over the leg side, perished next ball, well caught by a diving Hutton at deep backward square attempting a repeat.
The two pacemen each took a breather after 10 overs, but Kent’s demise was quickly completed as Bhuiyan gave Haseeb Hameed’s legbreaks a maiden first-class wicket.
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