Mick Newell has challenged the Notts Outlaws to improve with bat, ball and in the field as they prepare for a must win NatWest T20 Blast fixture against the Derbyshire Falcons.

The Director of Cricket insists that the Outlaws, who are welcoming Captain James Taylor back from injury, need to win all four of their remaining fixtures to qualify for the quarter-finals, and he’s outlined what is required in order to achieve their goal.

“We’ve backed ourselves into a corner where we need to win all four,” Newell said. “If we do that I’m pretty sure we’ll get through, but we have no room for manoeuvre.

“It’s a situation of our own making. In previous years we’ve got in a position of getting 16 points early and then trying to win the group.

“This year it’s just a case of trying to get through by any means.”

Newell understands the local rivalry with Derbyshire more than most but, in this instance, he believes the situation of the North Group table, and the desire to send what’s sure to be a sizeable home crowd happy, is motivation enough. 

“Ultimately it’s more important getting through to the quarter-finals than it is beating Derbyshire, but the two things are related here,” he said.

“It’s part of the whole big picture which is that we would like to get to the last eight again after five successive years of getting there. Beating Derbyshire is one step along the way, so it’s important that the players and everyone connected to the team makes sure we’re at peak readiness for Friday night, and to make sure it’s the start of three wins in seven days that give us a chance.

“Every home game this year has had a good crowd,” Newell continued. “Even on the wet day against Durham there was still a good crowd by most people’s standards.

“We want people to come to Trent Bridge to watch and enjoy and, most of all from our perspective, they want to see us win, so that’s incentive for us as well.”

The Outlaws have won four and lost six of their ten T20 fixtures to date this season, seeing them positioned seventh in the table, but just two points away from the quarter-final positions.

Newell admits form has been disappointing, but he is backing the Outlaws to turn a timely corner at the business end of the competition.

“We’ve got to believe it’s achievable, but we need to play better and all aspects of our game need to improve,” he said.

“We put in one really good performance at the start against Birmingham. Since then we’ve rarely played well enough and that’s disappointing.

“All three areas of the game have been under-par,” Newell continued.

“From a fielding perspective we need to be sharper and more aggressive. We need to be totally committed and throw ourselves around for 20 overs.

“We’ll tweak our build-up a little bit to do more work on fielding. When you face a young, dynamic team like Worcester, I felt we were out-fielded. It’s an area where we can show a bit more.

“From a batting perspective, we need more individual scores, more players making 50s, 60s and 70s which help setup big totals.

“And bowling wise we’ve just got to nail our skills. We’ve been a little bit off in terms of yorkers, slower balls and those sorts of things.

“We haven’t delivered with the ball as well as we would like to and more wickets early-on would be beneficial to us.

“How they come isn’t desperately important. It can come from a really good ball, it can come from pressure of dot-balls, it can come from all manner of means.

“Get wickets in the early part of the innings and it can put pressure on the opposition.

“When we’ve given away big scores it’s when people have got away from us and we haven’t been able to stem the flow of runs.

“A combination of those three things is why we are where we are.

“People expect us to win every match because of the quality of players we have, but it’s up to the those players to perform to a higher standard.”

 

Notts Outlaws NatWest T20 Blast Ticket Information

v Derbyshire Falcons – Friday 10 July 6.30pm BUY TICKETS

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