The Notts bowling attack against Durham Jets on Friday will boast star quality from the world stage in Stuart Broad and Imran Tahir, but Harry Gurney is still challenging himself to play the match winning role.
The Notts Outlaws and England left-armer had been ever present across all three formats prior to taking a rest for this week’s Specsavers County Championship fixture against Warwickshire, a total of 18 consecutive matches.
An overall wicket haul of 45, four of which came in a career-best spell against the Derbyshire Falcons last time out, makes for impressive reading – and the 29-year-old is eager to retain his form.
“I'm happy with the way it's going and I hope that the second half of the season matches the first in terms of wickets,” he said.
“What’s more important is that we go deep in the one-day competitions and get ourselves up the Championship table, where we feel we deserve to be.”
Having taken wickets with the final two deliveries of his spell against the Derbyshire Falcons, Gurney will in fact be on a hat-trick when he first gets his hands on the ball against the Jets on Friday.
“Maybe I'll ask the captain for five slips and two gullies,” he joked.
“Having won so comfortably in the last time out in a T20, that will give us confidence going into the Durham fixture – and playing at home always makes quite a big difference as well.
“We're all looking forward to getting back to Trent Bridge after quite a long period away.
“T20 always been a form of the game that I've always backed myself in. It's probably my strongest format,” added the 12-time England international.
“It's never one I regularly struggle for confidence in. In terms of my economy rate this year (8.92), I've been slightly more expensive than I'm accustomed to, so I'm quite keen to put that right, down to around the 7.5 mark.”
Nottinghamshire have already faced the men from the North East on three occasions this season, with Mick Newell’s men having the better of a drawn four-day fixture at Trent Bridge but losing at Chester-le-Street in both the 50 and 20 over formats.
Gurney’s experiences against the Jets in 2016 have been mixed; conceding 44 runs in the T20 loss before bouncing back with a fine performance of 5-51 in the longer of the white ball formats.
It is, however, the Royal London One-day Cup fixture that leaves the bitterest taste for the former Leicestershire man, as Keaton Jennings struck a six and a four from the final two deliveries of the match to secure an unlikely Durham win.
Gurney is using it all as added motivation and, although he plans to brush up slightly on video footage of the Durham batsmen ahead of the game, primary focus will be on executing his own game, and doing it well.
“The circumstances of losing the 50 over game were particularly frustrating and disappointing,” he said.
“From a team perspective we'll be looking to put that right and, for me personally, I'll be trying to put that to bed by playing a match-winning role.
“The analyst gives us footage of the opposition and it's up to us to do what we like with that.
“Some people go through it with a fine tooth comb, others might not even look at it.
“I'm somewhere in the middle. I tend to have a look through. Once you've been around on the circuit for a while, you're fairly familiar with a lot of the players you come up against.
“You know the areas they're looking to score off you so you don't need to go through it as much.
“The main focus once you get to game day is on yourself – preforming as well as you possibly can, because that's most important thing really.”
The Outlaws, who have won their last three completed matches in the NatWest T20 Blast, will relinquish Andre Russell from the team that won handsomely against Derbyshire last time out.
The West Indian all-rounder’s globetrotting continues with a stint in the Caribbean Premier League, with South African international leg-spinner Imran Tahir joining the ranks in his place.
Elsewhere in the side, Stuart Broad’s availability is timely with Luke Fletcher nursing the groin problem that forced him to leave the field at Edgbaston.
Notts Outlaws squad to face Durham Jets (from): Jake Ball, Stuart Broad, Dan Christian (c), Harry Gurney, Brett Hutton, Michael Lumb, Steven Mullaney, Samit Patel, Greg Smith, Imran Tahir, Brendan Taylor, Riki Wessels, Sam Wood.
Notts Outlaws NatWest T20 Blast Fixtures & Ticket Information
Vs. Durham Jets – Friday 1 July 6.30pm BUY TICKETS
Vs. Worcestershire Rapids – Saturday 9 July 2.30pm BUY TICKETS
Vs. Yorkshire Vikings – Friday 15 July 6.30pm BUY TICKETS
Vs. Leicestershire Foxes – Friday 29 July 6.30pm BUY TICKETS
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