Cricket: Adams key to win for Notts

Andre Adams. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Auckland's returning professional Andre Adams was a key figure in Nottinghamshire's dramatic final-day clinching of the English first division county championship.

With Somerset in the box seat, but unable to clinch a win over Durham, Nottinghamshire needed to score 400 runs to get five batting points, then get three Lancashire wickets on the final day of a rain-hit game at Old Trafford.

The first three days had been rained off. When the teams made a belated start on the last day, the first part of the equation was accomplished, courtesy of a century from Australian Adam Voges.

Then bustling medium pacer Adams stepped up. He took two wickets in 10 balls - the second and decisive wicket being West Indies star Shivnarine Chanderpaul - to seal the championship with Lancashire left on 11 for three, the other taken by England bowler Ryan Sidebottom. That put Nottinghamshire and Somerset level on 214 points, with Notts clinching the title courtesy of seven victories, to Somerset's six.

It was Nottinghamshire's sixth championship title, while Somerset have yet to win the first-class crown.

It was fitting reward for 35-year-old former international Adams, who is back playing for Auckland in the coming domestic season after departing in the 2007-08 season.

He finished the season the highest first-class wicket taker in the championship.

Veteran lefthander Chanderpaul was his 68th wicket for Notts, taken at an average of 22.17 apiece. That left him 10 wickets clear of the next most successful first division bowler, Somerset's Charl Willoughby, while Gemaal Hussain took 67 for Gloucestershire in the second division.

"I couldn't heap enough praise on him," Nottinghamshire's captain, former England wicketkeeper Chris Read, said of Adams.

Now Auckland will hope their investment in the allrounder will pay off.