The season sauntered into an incredibly mild September as Nottinghamshire faced their last three games of the year.
County Championship - Yorkshire at Trent Bridge 04/09-07/09
The team from the white rose county decided to bowl first at Trent Bridge and, for one of the few times this season, Notts actually batted really well. The openers put on 182 for the first wicket with Kraigg Brathwaite scoring 71 and Ben Slater hitting 109, showing why Notts were so keen to get him in early, before his Derbyshire contract expires. Ben Duckett, another new signing, scored 80 on debut and Samit Patel chipped in with 54 as Notts reached 448. Yet again Notts took a wicket in the first over but Yorkshire's middle order were really in form - Gary Ballance scoring 104 and Tom Kohler-Cadmore 106. An 80 from Tim Bresnan and 51 from Jonathan Tattersall helped the visitors to 498, practically guaranteeing the draw. Notts batted for 31 overs in their second innings before handshakes were offered, although sharing the points helped neither team's relegation worries.
County Championship - Essex at Trent Bridge 10/09-13/09
Defending champions Essex arrived in Nottingham as another team looking down rather up in the Division 1 table. Winning the toss, Notts elected to bat, slumping to 104-8. Tail end runs from Luke Wood (27), Luke Fletcher (30) and Mark Footitt (21 not out) saw Nottinghamshire limp to 177. Three wickets apiece for Matt Coles and Matthew Quinn and four for Jamie Porter put the hosts on the ropes. Essex opener Murali Vijay scored a fifty but four wickets for skipper Steven Mullaney and three for Lyndon James on debut, left the visitors struggling on 174-8. However, 48 runs from Simon Harmer helped give Essex a useful first innings lead of 56. Notts made a strong start to their second knock, Kraigg Brathwaite scoring 68 and Ben Slater 54 but from a strong position of 161-1, a total of 337 all out looked a little light despite 53 from Mullaney. Harmer followed up his impressive batting with 6 wickets, leaving Essex chasing 282 for victory. After losing Nick Browne early, Vijay (100) and Tom Westley (110 not out) took total control of the game and an eight-wicket win saw Essex all but confirm their Division 1 status.
County Championship - Somerset at Trent Bridge 24/09-27/09
The final round of County Championship fixtures would be a straight shoot-out between Notts and Lancashire to see which one stayed up, with Notts starting the matches with a 19 point advantage. Batting first, Somerset scored 463 runs, built around an innings of 137 from James Hildreth. He received excellent support from Marcus Trescothick (71), Steve Davies (55) and Jamie Overton (55). Harry Gurney was the pick of the Nottinghamshire bowlers, taking 6 wickets. Craig Overton took three wickets for the visitors and Tom Abell took a hat-trick to finish the Notts innings as they slumped to 133 all out. Following on, Ben Slater followed up 35 in the first innings with 49 and Steven Mullaney but another hat-trick, this time by Craig Overton, removing Slater, Samit Patel and Riki Wessels in three balls, ripped the heart out of Nottinghamshire's resistance. Somerset were victorious by an innings and 146 runs; another crushing defeat for Notts. However, the host managed to score two points while Lancashire's 21 meant the two teams were level at the end of the season, with Notts staying up by virtue of winning four games to Lancashire's three.
Duck of the Month: Riki Wessels. The third wicket as Somerset took a second hat-trick in two days ended an underwhelming campaign for Wessels.
Player of the Month: Ben Slater. The left-handed opener already looks like he's settled in after the short trip down the A52 with a hundred, a fifty and four other scores over 30 in the month. Hopefully, he can keep it up next season.
A season that started so well back in April fizzled out into disappointment. Whereas last year someone stepped up in almost every game, this year felt much more like 2016 with collapse after collapse. Constant chopping and changing of the team didn't help, nor did Alex Hales missing so much of the limited overs season. The signings of Slater and Duckett bode well for next year though as does the arrival of Joe Clarke - the starting XI in April 2019 could look very different to the one that started this season.
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