Five-wicket paceman Dillon Pennington helped Nottinghamshire complete a fourth win in seven matches, this one against Yorkshire at Headingley shortly before tea on day four, to strengthen their position at the Division One summit in the County Championship.
Struggling Yorkshire were set a 463-target during the third afternoon and closed on 176-5, losing four of those wickets in the evening session, including one in the day’s final over to Pennington.
Yorkshire started the fourth day well, with top-scorer Matthew Revis and George Hill sharing a 54-run partnership to raise hopes of avoiding a fourth defeat in seven matches. But they needed much more and were later bowled out for 299 inside 121 overs, slipping to a 163-run defeat.
The part-time spin of Freddie McCann made the breakthrough by bowling Hill with the first ball of a solitary over shortly before the new ball. Pennington then removed Revis for 45 just after lunch and finished with an impressive season’s best 5-106 from 31 overs.
Nottinghamshire claimed 19 points to Yorkshire’s three and reach the midway point in the four-day campaign well placed to claim a first Championship title since 2010.
Not since 2011 have they won at Headingley, a venue at which they have only ever won five Championship matches, including this.
Pennington claimed three of his wickets on Monday in easing batting conditions to keep Yorkshire second-bottom in the table.
Revis and new England Lions all-rounder Hill, who contributed 26, batted pretty comfortably through the first 85 minutes of a gloomy and chilly day.
Although the former took a painful blow on the right thumb from the seam of Brett Hutton, he played confidently through the off-side off front foot and back on the way to a season’s best score in his fourth appearance.
But all Notts had to do was stay patient, and you felt success would come. And it did, even if it initially came via the most unexpected route.
The off-spin of McCann was brought into the attack to bowl the 79th over, the penultimate before the new ball was due.
He dragged his first ball down and Hill’s eyes lit up. He went to pull, but the delivery scooted through and uprooted middle stump, leaving the score at 230-6.
Seven balls into the afternoon, Pennington forced Revis – playing back – to feather behind to South African Kyle Verreynne with the score on 244.
The same combination ousted Yorkshire’s stand-in captain Dom Bess for 21 and then Ben Coad for five.
By that stage, at 277-9, the outcome of the game was all but certain.
With light rain starting to fall, last pair Jack White and Jordan Thompson resisted for more than an hour – and almost 20 overs – to threaten that theory.
But Mohammad Abbas got White caught behind by Verreynne, whose sixth catch in the innings and ninth in the match sealed the win.
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