Young Nottinghamshire star Samit Patel has been nominated for Metro newspaper’s County Cricketer of the Month award for June.

The 22-year-old batsman has been enjoying a terrific start to the season and after making an unbeaten 89 against Derbyshire in the LV County Championship, added two match-winning knocks of 55 not out and 84 not out in the opening two fixtures of the Twenty20 Cup.

Patel is named in a shortlist of five players alongside James Hildreth of Somerset, Warwickshire wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose, Yorkshire opener Joe Sayers, and Essex’s Ravi Bopara.

With the emphasis on finding the finest emerging cricketers on the county scene, Test players are excluded from nominations. Every nominee must also be England qualified.

Performances in the Championship, Friends Provident Trophy, NatWest Pro-40 League and Twenty20 Cup are all taken into account and at the end of the season, the monthly winners will fight it out to be crowned Metro’s County Cricketer of the Year.

With a national circulation of more than one million across the country, Metro are leaving it up to their army of readers to decide who wins their monthly award by conducting an online poll on their website. To vote for Samit or any of the other contenders click here.