Last season Nottinghamshire maintained their Division One status following promotion in 2022 and that is no surprise given their resources. They qualified for a quarter final spot in the Blast, only to come up against the eventual winners, Somerset, but fared less well in the One Day Cup, finishing fifth in their group.
Steven Mullaney has stepped down as club captain, to be replaced by Haseeb Hameed for the Championship. Hameed will be looking for a few more runs this season, having averaged just 28.08 in the Championship last summer and 13.85 in the One Day Cup, a competition in which he led the side. He obviously has the confidence of head coach Peter Moores, who has been in charge at Trent Bridge since the end of 2016. Mullaney has taken up a player-coach role and it is great to see that he will be passing on his experience to the younger players as captain of the second XI.
Joe Clarke was their top run scorer in the Championship, passing the 1000 run mark for the first time, while Ben Slater made 825 runs at 33.00. The remainder of the batters lacked consistency, reflected in the relative lack of batting bonus points.
Brett Hutton was the top wicket taker in the Championship with 62 at 21.40, while Dane Paterson reached the 50 wicket mark. Lyndon James also performed well with the ball, taking 28 wickets, but had a disappointing season with the bat. The main threat comes from the seam attack, but leg spinner Calvin Harrison contributed 17 wickets. Slow left armer Liam Patterson-White took 41 championship wickets in 2022, but fell away last season, hampered by a hamstring injury halfway through the season. He will be hoping to bounce back this season, having regained some form in the One Day Cup, in which he took eight wickets and conceded just 4.68 runs per over.
Paterson will be in the final year of his four year contract having been recalled to the South African Test side for their recent tour of New Zealand, for which most of the first choice players were unavailable due to the clash with the SA20. He has been a reliable performer fro Nottinghamshire, having taken more than 50 Championship wickets in each of the last three years. He is joined by Kiwi top order batter Will Young, who made 299 runs in three appearances for the club last summer. The 31-year-old will be available for seven Championship games and the entire T20 Blast, but his first appearance is delayed until the third round of matches.
As well as Young, two other overseas players have been signed for the Blast, with fellow Kiwi, left-arm paceman Ben Lister signed for the first set of matches. The 28-year-old has played four ODIs for New Zealand, the last two in the series against England last September, as well as ten T20 internationals. This will be his first time playing domestic cricket outside New Zealand. Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi then joins up with the Outlaws for the second set of group matches, fresh from the T20 World Cup. The 23-year-old left arm quick is more travelled than Lister, having played in multiple franchise competitions, including for the Sunrisers Hydrabad in the Indian Premier League, where he remains one of their squad for this year’s tournament.
Joe Clarke has taken over the captaincy of the T20 side and can again call on the brutal hitting of Alex Hales, who has signed a white ball contract extension for this season.
One notable absence from the Outlaw’s white ball sides will be Samit Patel, who has been playing at Trent Bridge for 22 years. He was released at the end of last season and has been picked up by Derbyshire, where he will lead their white ball sides. 2023 also saw the retirement of Stuart Broad, after 15 years at Nottinghamshire. His appearances have been limited in more recent years, but he took 201 first class wickets for Nottinghamshire in 53 appearances. However, that pales against his Test record of 604 wickets from 167 matches.
Nottinghamshire have again been recruiting from their Midlands neighbours, this time Worcestershire. They have signed the two quick bowlers Josh Tongue and Dillon Pennington, adding youth to the attack, with the stepping back of Mullaney and Luke Fletcher in his 36th year. They may be limited in their access to Tongue, who was unfortunate to have his introduction to Test cricket cut short by injury last summer. He has cited the wish to work with the ex-England fast bowling coach Kevin Shine, who is now with Nottinghamshire, as one of the reason for the move. They have also snaffled 22-year-old batter Jack Haynes, who has made a solid start to his career. He has already played 45 first class games, averaging 35.42 and is a handy white ball player, having earned himself a wildcard pick for the Oval Invincibles in 2022, although he played in just one match and has not featured again in the Hundred.
Key player
Haseeb Hameed has been given the captaincy of the Championship side, in addition to the One Day Cup responsibilities and will be keen to set the standard for a side with a good blend of youth and experience. It is over two years since he played the last of his 10 Tests, discarded following the drubbing England received in the 2021/22 Ashes. His poor return in that series contrasts with the bright start he made to his Test career five years earlier, as a19-year-old against India in Rajkot, averaging 43.8 before he was forced out of the fourth Test through injury. While Hameed will not be expecting a phone call from Brendon McCullum anytime soon, he will be keen to regain the form of 2022, when he was the Championship’s second highest run scorer, with 1235 runs, including four centuries as Nottinghamshire cruised to the Division Two title. He will want to repeat this against the Division One attacks.
One to watch:
Calvin Harrison will be a new name to many, but as well as his 17 wickets in the Championship last summer, the most for a leg spinner and nine more than Rehan Ahmed (at almost half the average), the 25-year-old also took 12 wickets in the Blast, conceding just 7.07 runs per over. He has had a rather convoluted cricket journey. Born in Durban and educated at King’s College, Taunton, he was part of the Somerset Academy, but was not offered a professional contract. While at Oxford Brookes University, he impressed in a pre season game against Nottinghamshire, hitting 121 off 166 balls and was signed in 2021 on a three month contract. He performed well in the Blast and was picked up by the Manchester Originals as a last-minute replacement for the following season’s Hundred competition. While he is not a big turner of the ball, he has the benefit of standing 6′ 4″ tall.
Overseas signings: Dane Paterson (South Africa), Will Young (New Zealand, from 19 April for County Championship & T20), Ben Lister (New Zealand, for T20, 30 May-21 June), Fazalhaq Farooqi (Afghanistan, for T20, 5-19 July)
Ins: Dillon Pennington (Worcestershire), Josh Tongue (Worcestershire), Jack Haynes (Worcestershire), Freddie McCann (Academy), Ben Lister (Kent)
Outs: Samit Patel (Derbyshire), Jake Ball (Somerset), Stuart Broad (retired)
How will they fare: Nottinghamshire’s best chance of success is in the white ball competitions, where if the likes of Hales and Clarke can fire, they can progress to the latter stages of the Blast. They should be competitive in the Championship, but a challenge for the title may be beyond them at present.
Opening fixture: LV= County Championship vs Essex on April 5 at Trent Bridge, Nottingham
Season Odds (SkyBet):
County Championship – 8/1
T20 Blast – N/A
One-Day Cup – N/A
