Mick Newell praised the professionalism of his batsmen for guiding Notts Outlaws to a vital NatWest T20 Blast victory over Northamptonshire Steelbacks at Trent Bridge today.

The Director of Cricket admits he would back his batting line-up to chase totals such as the Steelbacks’ 173 on the majority of occasions, after a score in excess of 200 had proved to be out of reach against Derbyshire the previous day. 

“It’s always a low point to lose to Derbyshire, but I was pleased to bounce back today with a very good run chase.

“170-180 are the sort of scores you’re more comfortable chasing in T20 cricket, they’re more regulation at Trent Bridge and, with a strong batting team, we’re confident of chasing that down most times. Once you’re chasing over 200 as we were last night, you’ve got to have a world class performance, and everything to go your way to chase it down.

“Today we were in control for the most part throughout the 20 overs of our batting. We got off to a start and were in a good position after the powerplay which was pleasing after Alex Hales got out early. We’ve got an aggressive and highly talented top five, and they’ve shown that today.

“An over and a half to spare makes it look quite comfortable. You’re going to lose some wickets, you’re not likely to chase that none down because you’ve got to play with attacking intent, so I think it was a very professional run chase, particularly by Samit and Titch (James Taylor).

“Our batsmen have got complete freedom to play the shots,” Newell continued. “As long as they practice them, they can play them in the game, that’s my only mantra about T20 batting.

“Don’t think you can suddenly produce something that we’ve never seen before and, for the most part, we don’t do that, we just haven’t - until today - been executing our plans as well as we would like to.”

Newell revealed in the aftermath of the seven wicket victory that Club Captain Chris Read, who was named in the 15-man squad for this weekend’s matches following injury but wasn’t risked, will return to the team for both the red and white ball formats, starting with the LV= County Championship against Worcestershire starting on Monday.

”BT (Brendan Taylor) has struggled a little bit in this form of the game if you look at what we’ve tried to do, using him as a keeper and batting at number three, and that hasn’t worked.

“We’ve had Riki for these two matches and we might have Ready back for Friday night.

“All the players have been telling me we miss his presence, we miss his calming influence around the team and it will be very good to get him back on the field on Monday.

“We almost made the mistake of playing him last night at Derby. Luckily the physio stepped in, common sense prevailed and we’ll get him back in on Monday.”

Newell is now challenging his side to win four of their last five NatWest T20 Blast matches in order to ensure qualification for the last eight.

“It’s very much up in the air again and Birmingham, who won it last year, qualified with 16 points," he said.

“With five games to go, we’re quite capable of winning four of them and getting to that total.

“Looking at the group this year, nobody is running away with it so 15 might even get you through, because all teams are beating each other."

 

Notts Outlaws NatWest T20 Blast Fixtures & Ticket Information

v Worcestershire Rapids – Friday 3 July 6.30pm BUY TICKETS
v Derbyshire Falcons – Friday 10 July 6.30pm BUY TICKETS

Need more information? Call our ticket office on 0844 8118711.