Nottinghamshire needed only until 1.17pm on the final afternoon to complete their second victory of the Rothesay County Championship season, defeating neighbours Leicestershire by 10 wickets at Uptonsteel Grace Road.

After the pace of Olly Stone wreaked havoc for last season’s Division Two champions in the first innings, it was left-arm spinner Liam Patterson-White taking centre stage this time, picking up the last five Leicestershire wickets for figures of five for 53 after bowling 36 overs unchanged.

It left Nottinghamshire, the defending Division One champions, with a target of just 73 to wrap up a 23-point victory, which was enough to see them go top of the new season’s table after Somerset lost to Yorkshire at Taunton.

Ben Slater completed the task by hammering left-arm quick Josh Hull over cover for six to finish on 52 not out, with skipper Haseeb Hameed unbeaten on 22. Slater was dropped behind the stumps on 15 off Ian Holland, the Leicestershire captain, in the only fleeting moment of encouragement for the home side. Umpires Richard Illingworth and Surendiran Shanmugam allowed the teams to stay on the field beyond the scheduled lunch interval to complete the job.

Patterson-White, who combines stamina with good attacking skills with the ability to build scoreboard pressure, revealed much potential early in career, taking 41 first-class wickets in 2022. His progress has followed a flatter trajectory since, but he made a 26-wicket contribution to Nottinghamshire’s title-winning season and already has 15 to his name in the first four matches of the current campaign.

Stone finished with match figures of eight for 109, challenging opener Slater’s 178 as Nottinghamshire’s performance of the match. Leicestershire all-rounder Ben Green’s wholehearted efforts with the ball were rewarded with a career-best seven for 112, while Stephen Eskinazi’s first-innings century prevented a more rapid demise, but Ian Holland’s side were generally outplayed.

Leicestershire, 215 for seven overnight, having at least done enough to make Nottinghamshire bat a second time, lost their eighth wicket to the fourth ball of the morning as Tom Scriven popped up a simple catch to short leg to give Patterson-White his fourth success.

Ajaz Patel, after his career-best 62 in the first innings, looked in the mood to continue where he had left off. He was lucky to get away with an inside edge for four off Lyndon James but picked up back-to-back boundaries off Patterson-White with a couple of authentic shots.

Yet the response from the Nottinghamshire spinner was too good, Ajaz having no answer to a ball that turned sharply from the rough outside off stump to bowl him in the next over.

Hull, whose manful support for Eskinazi in the first innings had allowed his partner to secure an extra batting point as well as to reach his own milestone, gamely stuck around again as Green secured such gains as he could before a thick outside edge saw him caught at backward point as Patterson-White claimed his fifth.

A product of Nottinghamshire’s academy, Patterson-White’s ability to remain consistently effective for long spells has put to bed any question marks over his fitness and at 27 years old he will feel his peak years may still be ahead of him.

Nottinghamshire will face a somewhat stiffer task in the next round when Surrey visit Trent Bridge hoping to avenge the defeat suffered in what was effectively the title-decider at the Kia Oval last September. Leicestershire, meanwhile, travel to Hove to take on Sussex, to whom they have already lost this season.