Jake Lehmann's Unbeaten 115 Revives Hampshire's Hopes
Jake Lehmann walked off Trent Bridge with his bat raised and Hampshire’s season, for once, not hanging by a thread.
On a surface where his team have so often folded, the left-hander carved out an unbeaten 115 that dragged Hampshire from familiar trouble into something far more competitive: 267-7, 110 behind Nottinghamshire’s 377, and still alive in a contest that had threatened to run away from them.
Lehmann stands tall in brittle batting order
Hampshire’s batting has been one of Division One’s soft spots all year. Only Lancashire have scored fewer runs per wicket, and Hampshire’s average of 24.50 per dismissal tells its own story. Lehmann has been the glaring exception.
The South Australian, playing under a British passport, now owns the joint-second highest run tally in the top flight this season with 922. At Trent Bridge he batted as if operating in a different competition altogether.
He was busy from the outset, daring with his feet, his movement down the pitch and across it instantly calling to mind his father Darren. By lunch he had 33 from 29 balls, Hampshire were 114-3, and Nottinghamshire’s early swagger had dimmed.
By the close, he was still there, one run shy of his best in England – the 116 he made for Yorkshire in 2016 – and the single biggest reason Hampshire have not been buried under a first-innings avalanche.
False dawn for Notts
The day began perfectly for the champions. Olly Stone, with the first ball of the morning, went full and straight, Felix Organ pushed defensively, and an edge flew behind. Six and gone. From 12-1, Hampshire looked ripe for another collapse.
Notts then ran into a flat spell. The reply moved calmly through 18 overs as Toby Albert and Nick Gubbins settled, pushing the score along without real alarm. Then the game jolted.
Tom Giles, the fourth seamer playing just his second match, struck in his second over. Albert, on 31, played around a full ball and was pinned lbw. Four balls later, Dillon Pennington came round the wicket to the left-handed Gubbins, produced almost the same delivery, and trapped him for 35.
From relative comfort, Hampshire were suddenly three down with two new batters yet to face a ball. The champions had their tails up and the Trent Bridge members sensed a familiar procession.
Lehmann refused to join it.
Pressure, then resistance
He counter-attacked, punching gaps, advancing to the spinners, disrupting lengths. By the time Hampshire reached 141, he had imposed himself on the innings. Then the slide resumed.
Joe Weatherley, on 25, misjudged badly and chose not to play a shot. Stone, back into the attack, hit him on the pad for a third successive lbw dismissal in the innings. Liam Patterson-White came on from the Stuart Broad End and clamped down immediately. Only 50 runs arrived in the 30 overs to tea as Notts squeezed and Hampshire retreated.
Ben Brown, who had grafted hard, then threw his hand away with a rash cut, slashing straight to first slip. Fraser Sheat, bustling in with good rhythm, struck again within ten balls, removing 18-year-old Ben Mayes for just one. At 190-6, either side of the tea interval, Hampshire’s innings dangled by a thread.
This was where the match might have broken open. Instead, it hardened.
Currie digs in, Notts held up
Scott Currie joined Lehmann and simply refused to go away. A seamer with one first-class century to his name from a loan stint at Leicestershire two years ago, he shelved ambition and settled in for a long, stubborn stay.
He faced 143 balls for his 35. The numbers look modest. The effect was anything but.
For 38 overs, the pair blunted everything Nottinghamshire threw at them. Patterson-White bowled a marathon spell, 21 overs for just 28 runs, his left-arm spin a constant source of pressure without reward. When he finally stood down for the second new ball at 216-6, Notts eyed a late burst and full bowling points.
It did not come. The harder, brighter ball slid past the outside edge, thudded into Currie’s pads, flew from Lehmann’s bat, but the wickets refused to fall.
Lehmann’s hundred arrived from 160 balls, a calm raise of the bat under leaden skies, and with every over that passed Hampshire’s position strengthened from salvage job to something approaching parity.
Only when 31 balls remained in the day did Nottinghamshire finally break the stand. Sheat produced a beauty to Currie, one that straightened late and went straight through him to rattle middle and off. The seventh-wicket stand of 97 had changed the mood of the match.
Lehmann, unflustered, saw out the day, inching to 115 not out by the close, one stroke away from matching his best score on English soil.
Frustration for champions
For Nottinghamshire, who have not won since beating Surrey 18 days ago, this was a day that began with promise and ended with irritation. They still hold the upper hand – a lead of 110 and two wickets to claim within the first ten overs on day three to secure maximum bowling points – but the dominance they might have expected has not materialised.
Hampshire, a side haunted by flimsy batting all season, finally found a backbone in Lehmann and Currie. The contest, like Lehmann’s innings, now feels set up for a long, tense finish.
The champions want a statement win. Hampshire just want a foothold. Which of those ambitions survives the morning session will say plenty about where both seasons are heading.
