Chris Read came through his first game of the Barbados tour feeling delighted with how things had gone.
The club skipper underwent surgery during the winter, so spoke of his satisfaction at coming through the two day tour match against Hampshire unscathed.
“This has been really worthwhile for us all because we’ve had two good days of cricket against like-minded opposition,” he said.
“It’s been particularly worthwhile for myself to get playing again because you never quite know how it is going to be, first game back.
“But I was pleased to get a good long stint in out there, 90 overs in the field, under my belt, over the two days and also spend some time in the middle with the bat, so I’m very happy.”
The troubling injury was one that doesn’t sound too pleasant for the squeamish amongst us. “My bicep tendon basically became detached from the elbow joint, I think they call it the distal bicep tendon. Anyhow, they had to operate to stick it all back together.”
Although he was forced to miss the recent Masters Cricket League event in Dubai, Read was always on schedule to return ahead of the new domestic campaign.
“The plan was always to be around the three month window to rehabilitate but with these things you never know how smoothly they will go,” he said. “But for the most part it has been really smooth and a really good rehabilitation process with only the odd snag along the way.”
Those watching on at the Windward ground over the last two days wouldn’t have been able to tell he was making his way back after injury, such was his excellence with the gloves and also in a bright little cameo of 25 with the bat.
The desire to give as many people a bat as possible over the last two days saw the captain promoted to three in Nottinghamshire’s second innings. An early wicket meant a rendezvous with an old adversary, West Indian pace ace, Fidel Edwards.
“You want to face these guys, you know,” he stated. “It wasn’t the quickest of pitches, it was quite placid but at the same time you want to face the best bowlers you can on these tours so it’s very worthwhile that we are playing against good county opposition.
“We’d rather face the top bowlers in their side rather than the second and third string and guys you don’t potentially know about, so it was great to see Fidel turn up and to face a few overs from him.
“It has been a good 48 hours for us and now we need to finish the tour off well with another good two days against Northamptonshire.”
The 2015 season saw dramatic last-gasp four day victories, thrilling limited-overs contests and an historic Investec Ashes Test, all in the unique surroundings of Trent Bridge.
Next season, we’d wager, will be no less enthralling and frankly we’d hate for you to miss out.