Mick Newell is expecting a positive result from the LV= County Championship visit to Durham starting tomorrow – and he is backing Nottinghamshire to emerge from Chester-le-Street victorious.

The director of cricket admits his side’s need for victory has been heightened by three successive draws at the beginning of the season, but he has extracted plenty of positives from performances with both bat and ball.

“We want to start winning because, if you’re going to be in the top half of the division, it’s important that you’re looking to win more than 50 percent of your matches,” he said.

“Now we’ve had three draws and we’ve only got 13 games left, so it’s getting quite important.

“It’s certainly a ground at Durham where very rarely there are drawn games so, if we get four dry days, I would expect there to be a win and loss situation, and hopefully that win is for us.

“I’m confident with the way we’re playing but the longer you go without a win, the more you are seeking that result.”

With Notts yet to take a full 20 wickets in any of the three matches so far, Newell admits that – while the bowling attack has performed solidly – it has not always been threatening.

Jake Ball misses out for the first time this season with a hand injury and Newell has opted to recall Andy Carter from his loan spell at Glamorgan.

“We’re bowling quite nicely – we’re bowling tidily and we’re bowling efficiently,” Newell said.

“In all three games we’ve more than held our own. 

“We created a winning chance at Lord’s and didn’t take it and we were certainly on the right side of the game against Hampshire before rain washed-out the last day.

“Maybe we don’t look quite as threatening in a couple of situations, so we’re going to have a look at the makeup of our bowling attack for this game. 

 “Jake has picked up a hand injury so we’re going to leave him out of this game and we’ll try to get him recovered as quickly as we can,” Newell continued.

“We’ll bring Andy Carter back into the squad, who has done very well on loan at Glamorgan.

“He’s fit, he’s available and he’s very confident through the way he’s been bowling.

“It’s good to have him back, the loan has benefited him, it’s benefited Glamorgan and we’ll see in the next couple of weeks if it’s benefited Notts.

“Carts was aware that getting wickets for Glamorgan would be of more benefit to him than staying in our Second XI.

“That’s the whole point of the loan system, that’s why it works well and hopefully in this instance it works well for us.

“The challenge is to take 20 wickets – that’s the key thing if you’re going to win the game. We’ll be setting out to pick a bowling attack that we think can do that.”

For Newell’s batting line-up, it’s all about delivering more of the same and – with Alex Hales and James Taylor returning from international duty in good time – Notts will take the field with a fourth successive unchanged top seven.

“We’ve batted very well and we’ve put together some good scores,” Newell said.

“We’ve been inserted twice in three games on days when you’d rather be bowling than batting but - due to the efforts of Alex Hales, Brendan Taylor, James Taylor and various other people - we’ve managed to put some decent scores together.

“Alex and James are flying back on Saturday afternoon then they’re driving up to Durham.

“They’ve had plenty of time to prepare for this game in various different ways, so no problems for that.”

Nottinghamshire squad to face Durham (from): Andrew Carter, Luke Fletcher, Will Gidman, Harry Gurney, Alex Hales, Brett Hutton, Steven Mullaney, Samit Patel, Vernon Philander, Chris Read, Brendan Taylor, James Taylor, Riki Wessels and Luke Wood.

Durham squad to face Nottinghamshire (from): Paul Collingwood, Mark Stoneman, Keaton Jennings, Scott Borthwick, Michael Richardson, Calum MacLeod, Phil Mustard, John Hastings, Mark Wood, Chris Rushworth, Graham Onions, Usman Arshad and Paul Coughlin.

There will be on-line ball-by-ball commentary of this and every other Nottinghamshire match this season, provided by BBC Radio Nottingham. Access the link via the BBC Sport website.

For live text updates and ball-by-ball scorecard throughout the four days visit Trent Bridge Live.

 

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