Paul Franks is happy for Nottinghamshire’s youngsters to pick the brains of experienced players such as Saqlain Mushtaq, Usman Afzaal and Bilal Shafayat – but not before beating them on the field, as the Academy’s 2015 season gets underway tomorrow.

The Academy is participating once again in the Nottinghamshire Premier League, a division littered with former stars of the professional - and some from the international - game, alongside a whole host of wily league cricketers.

Nottinghamshire’s youngsters begin their campaign with a trip to the very north of the county and a match against Ordsall Bridon - and Franks believes Saturday Premier League cricket provides a great environment for young cricketers to learn their trade.

“We’ve put together what myself, Chris Tolley and the support staff believe is a very strong squad for the coming summer,” said Franks.

“We want to go out and produce good cricket on a Saturday afternoon, in what can sometimes be testing conditions.

“The team will change with regards school commitments and hopefully first team call-ups for one-or-two of the guys as well.

“So the challenge is trying to remain competitive as a team throughout that period.

“It is very tough and they learn a lot very quickly. They’ll have some good days and some bad days and that’s important.

“There are some very competitive teams, some teams from the Nottinghamshire Premier League have achieved at national level in the last few years, so we’ve got a stiff task ahead of us.

“Playing in that division there are the likes of Saqlain Mushtaq, Usman Afzaal and Bilal Shafayat - the list goes on beyond that too,” Franks continued.

“There are some very experienced cricketers and some excellent games of cricket played on a Saturday afternoon.

“It’s an excellent place for our cricketers to learn about the game and start to learn more about themselves.

“And if a couple of my young spinners want to go and talk to Saqlain Mushtaq, I haven’t got any problems with that.

“Likewise, if our young players think they can gain anything from anybody, be they professional or amateur, it’s important that we’re constantly learning.

“They are learning a lot about themselves, we’re learning about them and how to coach them moving forward.

“The quicker we can speed up that process, the better it will be for everybody concerned with Trent Bridge.”

This weekend’s opponents, Ordsall, narrowly avoided relegation from the top division in 2014, while Notts enjoyed an impressive run of late season form to conclude the season in fourth position.

With a 56-run pre-season victory over Derbyshire already in the bag, Franks believes Notts’ youngsters will be better prepared to start the season with a bang in 2015.

And, while the development of players is in many ways more important than striving to win the title, that fearsome Franks competitive edge means he can’t help but harbour ambitions of seeing Notts’ young team take the title. 

“I hope this year the squad will be better equipped,” he said.

“The majority of them have now experienced what cricket is like at top end league level. 

“Now it’s important for us to get them thinking about the types of habit we want when they move into the Second XI.

“We made the decision not to play any pre-season cricket as an Academy last year and we started slowly, so we felt it was something we should pay a bit more attention to for 2015.

“So we played against Derbyshire, it was a good game and it was good to see the guys get out there and start playing some good cricket.

“We won quite comprehensively in the end, which is nice. It’s always nice to beat Derbyshire.

“We’ll go in with the intention of trying to win every game – not necessarily win at all costs, but trying to win every game,” Franks continued.

“We’ll encourage them to take responsibility for the winning of the game. We’re looking for individuals to stand-up and score big runs, or take big wicket hauls.

“They’re very much in the league with a chance of winning it.

“It’s something we’ve not managed to achieve as yet and it’s not been one of the highlight goals, going out to win the league every year.

“But if you’ve got the mentality of trying to win every game of cricket, our performance in the second half of last year show’s we’re more than capable.

“If we can put together 22 good games of cricket, with individuals taking responsibility for the winning of those games, then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be in the mix come the start of September.

"The ultimate target is very much to create winning cricketers for Nottinghamshire and it’s important that we get to that quite soon.”

Nottinghamshire CCC Academy team to face Ordsall Bridon: Anuj Dal, Joe New, Connor Marshall, Adam Tillcock, Tom Keast, Simon Webster, Paul Franks, Simon Walton, Ben Kitt, Elliott Bowles and Jake Tong. 12th Man - Daniel Freeman