- There is a crucial factor which Nottinghamshire must nail to keep up their run
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Halfway up the hill, Nottinghamshire are looking down on the rest of the County Championship.
As first-class action returns to domestic cricket this weekend, even their most fervent fans would be forgiven for thinking the Division One table has been turned upside down.
After all, this was a team that last September, with only its second victory of the season – against Kent at Canterbury – staved off the threat of relegation.
This time, however, they have a chance of placing their flag at the top, having reeled off four wins in the opening seven fixtures, surpassing the internal expectations at Trent Bridge set in pre-season. A steady start they reckoned, and a target of a top-three placing, would have them well positioned for the home straight.
So, how come they have done their 2025 pacemaking at gold medal speed? Talk to the backroom team and they will tell you that it has been down to a collective willingness to pick up the baton and run with it when chance has presented itself.
Ten of the 35 five-wicket hauls in the top flight so far have been claimed by seven different Nottinghamshire bowlers. They have had seven different centurions too. Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say.
The challenge now, according to head coach Peter Moores, who knows from the experience of overseeing pennant-winning seasons with Sussex and Lancashire, is to keep going. ‘It’s like a marathon because it just keeps coming, and in some ways it is like Premier League football because you can’t drop your levels,’ he says.
Mick Newell, Nottinghamshire’s long-serving director of cricket, has a rather simplistic initial response when asked how things have been turned around: ‘First innings runs.’
Indeed, of the 10 top-flight teams only champions Surrey – in second place, 10 points back after seven rounds of matches – can match Nottinghamshire’s feat of surpassing 200 runs in each of their first innings so far.
With pitches around the country sharing a tendency to flatten out, it has meant Nottinghamshire have been in credit in five of their fixtures and trailed by just 20 runs in the draw with Essex, making the heavy defeat at Durham the only outlier.
Controlling matches has allowed the captaincy of Haseeb Hameed to flourish. For batting captains, good decisions tend to follow when the runs are flowing personally and Hameed is Division One’s top scorer with 734.
He has been prolific since replacing Steven Mullaney at the helm, easing past the 1000-run benchmark in his debut season of 2024, but those in and around Trent Bridge speak of how he has grown into the role.
According to the man himself, not much has changed in terms of team culture and he has been quick to praise Newell and Moores for the environment they have fostered on the banks of the Trent.
‘From the moment I stepped in this building, I was made to feel at home. I felt extremely comfortable being myself and backed to fulfil my role,’ says the former England and Lancashire opener.
He has also believes Nottinghamshire ‘recruited well,’ referring to the triple signing from Worcestershire of pace bowlers Josh Tongue and Dillon Pennington plus batsman Jack Haynes during the winter of his takeover.
Injuries delayed Tongue’s debut for the club until this summer and limited Pennington to 31 wickets in eight appearances last year when Haynes went hundred-less, but their arrivals have added to the depth of quality in what is a relatively young group.
Some believe this upturn in form can actually be traced back to the injection of youth the team was given 10 months ago.
Hours after 19-year-old Freddie McCann’s technically-adept 154 on his maiden first-class appearance at Trent Bridge, off-spinner Farhan Ahmed at 16 became the youngest player to take five wickets in a first-class innings and youngest with 10 in a match in Britain during the draw with Surrey.
Half a dozen more wickets from Ahmed, younger brother of Leicestershire’s England international Rehan, contributed to a vital victory at Canterbury while McCann’s second career hundred secured the stalemate with Warwickshire that guaranteed survival.
In addition to giving two Nottingham-born, state school products their head, Nottinghamshire have pulled in quality from further afield with the additions of seamers Fergus O’Neill and Mohammad Abbas, who have each averaged more than five wickets a game.
O’Neill, uncapped by Australia but in the mix for an Ashes debut next winter, departed due to visa limitations after 21 wickets at 17.9 while Pakistan’s Abbas has extended his stay to cover the remainder of the season – he was not due to play the four rounds using Kookaburra balls – having bagged 16 at 18.81.
Such a decision, paired with the impending arrival of India’s Ishan Kishan to cover South Africa wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne’s two-match absence, has maintained the star dust in a quest to win a first title in 15 years.
There may be some gambling on the home straight. As pitches get drier, they will want Ahmed, their premier spinner, in XIs – something that was easier to accommodate with O’Neill at No 8.
Since his departure, slow left-armer Liam Patterson-White has been selected to maintain depth in the batting, and with Abbas also a genuine rabbit, runs will have to be sacrificed for wickets – the currency that buys wins.
Two of the team’s elder statesmen will be required to maintain their influence at the beginning of each innings. Ben Slater has built on his most productive season in six years in 2024 with six 50s while Brett Hutton, the leading wicket-taker in the country in 2023, has returned with a vengeance, claiming two dozen victims after being restricted to five Championship games last year by an Achilles problem.
And keeping limbs young and old, fit and healthy, will be crucial during the final laps of this intriguing race.
