Jonathan Trott drops in and shows signs of making 'encouraging' progress

Nottinghamshire were beaten by lunch on day three but their fears of a points deduction over the state of the pitch here were allayed when an England and Wales Cricket Board panel chaired by the pitch liaison officer Tony Pigott concluded a mark of "below average" was the worst they could hand out and there would be no penalty.

Warwickshire's 98-run victory was watched by Jonathan Trott, the England batsman, who joined his county team-mates in the dressing room, although there is no suggestion of an imminent return to action after he was sidelined for an indefinite period because of stress-related problems.

However, Dougie Brown, the Warwickshire coach, said Trott is making "encouraging" progress in his recovery after his first attempt at a comeback was aborted after one Championship match. "We had a good chat and we know where he is at and all I can say is what we spoke about is very encouraging," Brown said.

He would not be drawn into speculating about another return to cricket. "Let's just see where he is at," he said. "He is dealing with something that has been ongoing for a while and the last thing I want just because he is back in the dressing room is it turning into a circus.

"I would really like it to be understated, for him to do what he needs to do to get back into cricket and for people to leave him to do that."

Trott, who came home after the first Test of the Ashes series in Australia because of what he later described as burnout, played in Warwickshire's defeat at home to Sussex in the opening round of Championship matches but struggled against short-pitched bowling and dropped a critical slip catch, after which he announced that he would be taking another break.

Nottinghamshire resumed this morning on 126 for 3 with a chance of chasing down their 300-run victory target. But the contest swung back in Warwickshire's favour when the home side lost their middle-order trio of James Taylor, Riki Wessels and Samit Patel in the space of five deliveries, after which Nottinghamshire subsided to 201 all out.

The impressive Chris Wright finished with seven wickets in the match and looked to have put behind him his six-month absence with a stress fracture last year.

Pigott denied that Nottinghamshire had been let off the hook, although he observed that their decision not to use the heavy roller under a change in the Laws meant that first-day dents in the pitch were not flattened out, making unpredictable bounce and sideways movement a factor in several dismissals.