Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club: July Roundup

Alex Hales blasted Notts to victory. Read about it here

Nottinghamshire kicked off their T20 Blast campaign for this year with a trip up to Leeds and similarly to the 50-over game back in April, Notts were schooled. Batting first, Yorkshire scored 227/5 with Adam Lyth top scoring with 82 and Shaun Marsh hitting an unbeaten 60. Harry Gurney took three wickets in reply but they were expensive ones. Fresh from his heroics at Lords, Alex Hales scored 47 and Steven Mullaney got 39 from just 18 balls but Notts were well off the required rate, slumping to a 48 run defeat.

After being asked to bat, Notts struggled early in the innings, losing 3 wickets in the first 4 overs. Samit Patel got things going, scoring 55 and Steven Mullaney scored 46 but 158/6 looked like a pretty middling score. Then something happened that really overshadowed the cricket - Luke Fletcher's first ball was hit straight back at him, hitting him in the head. He went down but was able to walk from the field and scans have confirmed that he's fine, although he won't play any more cricket this season. Everyone was visibly shaken up and the result rather paled in comparison but with Warwickshire needing just one run to win from the final ball of their innings, Michael Lumb messed up a simple run-out chance and the hosts won by 6 wickets.

The first T20 home game of the season saw Riki Wessels making hay, hitting 7 sixes as he made 110 from 54 balls. Brendon Taylor scored 67 in support as they put on 153 for the third wicket as Nottinghamshire posted 227/3. At that stage most of the fans at Trent Bridge would have been putting their feet up expecting an easy victory after scoring such a huge total. However, Derbyshire ran Notts incredibly close as Billy Godleman scored 43 from just 19 balls and Wayne Madsen top scored with 86 not out as the visitors fell an agonising 6 runs short of victory.

The following evening, Trent Bridge continued to be a batting paradise as Northants were asked to bat and clocked up 195/8 in their twenty overs. Opener Richard Levi top scored with 88 runs from 43 balls, including 8 sixes. Riki Wessels and Alex Hales hit 52 runs from just 5 overs when the rain came and no more play was possible. Messers Duckworth and Lewis calculated that this was enough and Notts won the game by 10 wickets.

Durham elected to bat and were probably regretting their decision as they found themselves 8-2 in the second over. Samit Patel went on to take three wickets, Luke Wood two and Steven Mullaney bowled his four overs for just 15 runs as Durham were all out for 123 with Graham Clark top scoring with 41. Notts cruised to victory as Hales hit 44, Wessels 49 not out and Taylor 33 not out to wrap up a nine wicket win with four overs to spare.

Ensconced in mid-table, Notts could have done with a win against a Worcestershire side that had yet to win in this season's T20. Put into bat, the visitors scored consistently at around 10 runs an over for the entire innings, their total of 208-8 underpinned by 60 from Joe Clarke and 42 from Ross Whiteley. In reply Nottinghamshire started explosively, reaching 92 without loss midway through the seventh over before Alex Hales was out for 63. Even when Brendon Taylor was out for 25, they were up with the required run-rate but from there Worcestershire squeezed things and 49 from Rikki Wessels and 26 not out from 9 balls from wicketkeeper Tom Moores weren't enough to prevent a loss by 13 runs.

Abandoned without a ball being bowled due to the rain.

A chance of revenge against Yorkshire for the defeat earlier in the competition looked unlikely as the visitors piled on the runs, racking up 223 for the loss of just five wickets. Opener Adam Lyth scored 59, Shaun Marsh 47 and Tom Kohler-Cadmore 37 from 18 balls while Samit Patel was the pick of the Notts bowlers, return figures of 3-29. As so often this season, cometh the hour, cometh Alex Hales. Opening with Riki Wessels, the pair put on 87 for the first wicket before Wessels was out for 34 from 15 balls. Hales would go on to hit fourteen 4s and four 6s as he posted his first T20 century for Notts as he scored 101 from just 47 balls, and with support from Brendon Taylor (41) and captain Dan Christian (24), Notts won the game with 5 balls still remaining.

All in all it's been a bit of an odd month. An excellent start with the win in the One Day Cup final has been overshadowed by the injury to Luke Fletcher keeping him out for the rest of the season and the retirements of Michael Lumb due to an ankle injury and Greg Smith deciding that his future lies outside of cricket. On the flip side, the signing of Mark Footitt from Surrey should prove to be astute, especially when the County Championship starts up again. On the field, four wins, three defeats and a draw see Notts well placed at the halfway stage of the T20 competition.

Nottinghamshire County Cricket website