Bears left praying for rain to spare them from defeat

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE need to find four wickets and, crucially, for the rain to stay away on the final day to turn their total domination of Warwickshire into a Rothe-say County Championship victory at Edgbaston.

- By ECB REPORTERS NETWORK

Trailing by 274 on first innings, Warwickshire closed the third day on 163 for six, in deep trouble but still alive and with a potential life-line in the form of heavy rain pre-dicted for the final day.

Nottinghamshire's decision to bat quite deep into day three despite the dodgy forecast could cost them.

They extended their first innings to 367, Haseeb Hameed carrying his bat for 138 in 399 minutes, sup-ported by Fergus O'Neill (50, 53 balls) and Lyndon James (42, 117).

Medium-pacer Michael Booth took five for 90, his maiden first class five-for.

But after the visitors' dynamic cricket on the second day, their batting on the third morning was bizarrely ponderous, achieving lit-tle more than robbing their bowl-ers of time to get stuck into War-wickshire's second innings.