With the chance to secure top spot at Trent Bridge on Friday to be followed by a home quarter-final, Dan Christian is backing his Notts Outlaws to continue their unbeaten run in the NatWest T20 Blast.
A recent triumph over the Birmingham Bears means the Outlaws have won each of their last seven completed fixtures in the competition, a record they’ll put on the line against the Leicestershire Foxes on Friday.
“If we play to our potential and everyone in the team plays as well as they possibly can, I’m not sure if any other team in the country can beat us,” said the skipper.
“We’ve got half-a-dozen guys in the team who have international experience and, if they’re all playing well at once, it makes us pretty hard to beat.”
Riki Wessels has been leading the Outlaws’ assault with the bat, topping the Club’s short format averages with 341 runs at 48.71, not to mention the 346 he has plundered at 86.5 in 50-over cricket.
Christian has played T20 cricket around the world, and says Wessels in his current form is as good as anyone.
“He’s in unbelievable form,” said Christian. “He’s been playing really, really well.
“He’s been hitting the ball as cleanly as anyone you’ll see around the world. I think it was the Worcestershire game when he got 80 off 30-odd balls, which was extraordinary striking. And, again at Welbeck the other day (Wessels scored 114 off 85 balls against Derbyshire), most of us, if not all of us, struggled with that cricket pitch, but he went out there and made it look really, really easy.”
Although Wessels has led the way, closely followed by Christian himself with 250 runs at 41.7, seven different Notts batsmen have contributed scores in excess of 30 during the tournament; something the captain believes to be important.
“It’s good for their own confidence as much as anything, and for the rest of the team as well, knowing everyone has contributed at some stage, got a decent score and helped us win.
“It certainly helps knowing you’ve got 11 match-winners in your team. It give you a lot of confidence and I think that we’re riding home because of that.”
With the ball, meanwhile, an eclectic mix of options has been the secret to restricting opponents to an average total of 149 during the winning run, according to the captain.
“None of our bowlers really do the same thing,” he said.
“We’ve got a nice mixture. We haven’t really got two bowlers who do the same thing.
“We’ve got Harry (Gurney), the left-armer with all of his slower balls, yorkers and swinging the new ball.
“Luke Fletcher has a great yorker, Jake Ball is fast with a good bouncer, Samit Patel’s your left-arm orthodox and Steven Mullaney’s your right-arm medium-pacer.
“Then there’s Imram Tahir, who is a world-class spinner, which certainly helps as well.
“His figures, apart from the Northants game (he took 3-13), probably haven’t have been as great as he would’ve liked. But he’s still done a fantastic job and had a bearing on our last few wins.”