Gallian wins battle of broken hand

reports from Trent Bridge Nottinghamshire 452 & 238 Lancashire 397-9 dec & 225-9 (Match drawn)

Jason Gallian, his injured right hand encased in plaster up to the elbow, was obliged to play out the last four balls of the match one-handed to earn Lancashire a draw here yesterday.

Fortunately for him, the bowler was Andy Afford, slow left arm, rather than the hostile Chris Cairns, and Gallian negotiated all four deliveries calmly, survived a concerted appeal for a catch off the third and received at least one congratulatory pat on the back from an opponent afterwards.

Thus ended dramatically a day of much mediocre two-handed batting. To say that Lancashire would have been disappointed after the first seven- wicket haul of Peter Martin's career had set everything up for victory would be putting it mildly. Conversely, Nottinghamshire came out of it far better than they dared hope after a batting display which was a combination of lack of footwork, judgement, common sense or all three.

The morning collapse against Martin at least spared Paul Johnson his calculations over a declaration. He might have been thinking of around 350 at five an over; in the event six wickets disappeared for 51 runs and, under normal circumstances, Lancashire must have fancied making 294 from 71 overs.

But circumstances were not normal. Gallian broke his right index finger in attempting a slip catch and could not open. Mike Atherton was again out of touch at a time when an anchor role was even more important and a stirring vignette by Neil Fairbrother was not enough.

Mike Watkinson, who had made a dazzling hundred opening the previous day, partnered Atherton but soon found it's a different game on Mondays. Cairns steamed in, disconcerted him with some short stuff and he did not look the same after taking a blow on the hand.

He perished sweeping in Afford's first over. With John Crawley failing in an attempted assault against Richard Bates's off-spin, much depended on Fairbrother, who put batting on a different level to anything seen earlier by making 50 from 89 balls with exemplary timing.

At 34, Nottinghamshire thought he was caught close in off Afford. Not so, ruled the umpire. Then an undistinguished delivery from Afford brought his downfall when Wayne Noon anticipated his paddle shot and caught him off the face of the bat.

With 122 required from 22 overs Lancashire were well on course. But now everything went awry. Afford mesmerised the lower order into a series of errors. Nick Speak held on, but even he ducked into a Cairns bouncer and it was soon clear that Gallian had to get padded up.

Earlier, Martin had emerged with 7 for 50, only the fourth time he had taken five wickets in a Championship innings. From the moment Cairns shuffled into an lbw decision and Johnson miscued to cover it became one of those sessions, rare in the life of any bowler, when everything went his way.