I don’t think Samit Patel ever imagined that he’d have the opportunity to attend his own film premiere, and even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted it would take place in Nottingham during an obscure Friday lunchtime.

But, last Friday, Samit, ably backed by Notts A-Listers Stuart Broad, Dirk Nannes, Chris Read and Ali Brown took his seat at the Broadway and watched himself destroy 50 paintballs on the silver screen.

There was no red carpet, no popcorn and no screaming fans but there was a strong media presence and our ticket sales this week suggest that the Nottingham public are getting behind our campaign.

I’m not sure what Dirk made of all the fuss having arrived at Trent Bridge just two days prior but he has the classic chilled-out-Aussie demeanour shared by David Hussey and Adam Voges and took it all in his stride.

Stuart Broad had opted to dismiss his housemate’s observation that he might get a few quid for his ICC World Twenty20 winners’ medal if he sent it to Dale Winton at Cash My Gold dot com and instead put it to good use by explaining his success with England and affinity for Notts to the assembled media.

"Shouts of ‘Franksy is going to cane you for that’ and ‘what the @$%! was that roar all about’ were probably well-deserved."

We still don’t know whether Broady will be available for our opening home fixture against Derbyshire Falcons in the Friends Provident t20 but Mick Newell must be keen to scribble Broad, Sidebottom, Nannes, Hussey, Read, Brown, Patel on his team sheet. Decent spine that.

The part of the video that seemed to capture the attention of the players was Samit’s lion’s roar halfway through. Shouts of ‘Franksy is going to cane you for that’ and ‘what the @$%! was that roar all about’ were probably well-deserved but I feel compelled to defend Samit because we did almost ten hours of filming for that video and he was good as gold.

The bus campaign starts soon and we’ve also got a billboard in town and some promos in Metro and on Trent FM. Corporate message now: if you haven’t already done so, buy your tickets in advance and save and if you do, remember that it’s kids for a quid when Notts Outlaws face Worcestershire Royals on Sunday 13th June.

Launch behind us, attention has turned to the matchday presentation and the combined efforts of our new host Colin Hazleden, our backroom team and the ECB should ensure that we put on a decent show. The most important element of our campaign though is a run of victories early-on so Mick, Huss, Ready, Dirk, Broady, Samit; it’s over to you.

After the screening, the Notts boys flew to Scotland before celebrating their victory with a few jars in Edinburgh city centre. Reports that a few of the lads overslept and had to sprint through departures like that kid in Home Alone are probably untrue and won’t be repeated here.

The other highlight of the last week was a day spent with former Channel Four Cricket presenter Sybil Ruscoe who we invited along to assess our media strategy and to pass on some of the methods that she put to good use during her broadcasting career. We learned a lot and we’ll be putting things into practice over the next few weeks. Steven Mullaney has put himself forward to present some video content for us. He’ll probably get ‘caned’ by Franksy and co but we wouldn’t expect anything less.