Peter Moores praised his Nottinghamshire side for their total commitment to red-ball cricket after earning a resounding 310-run win against Derbyshire at The Incora County Ground.
The visitors rounded off the victory inside three days, bowling out their East Midlands neighbours for 105 and 159.
Notts had set Derbyshire an unlikely target of 473 runs to win, but after surviving ten overs at the end of day two, the hosts were blown away during an intense morning session on the third day.
"It’s a fantastic moment, not just for the players but for everybody, including the coaches and all those who have worked hard over the last 12 to 18 months,” he said.
"Most things feel more special when you have to wait. There’s a lot of hard work being put into the way we go about our red-ball cricket which has been taking place over a long period of time, so this is a great moment for us all and something for us to continue to build on.
“The way the lads celebrated; it was clear to see how much it meant and I am so pleased for them, particularly for Steve Mullaney, who has lived every moment.
“We haven’t been able to get members and supporters into the ground this season so far. But, when they return, they’ll see and feel how much we want to win games and how much four-day cricket means to us. They would have seen that today and throughout the season.
"Since getting promoted back in 2017, it’s well documented that we lost seven or eight senior players at around the same time, and it’s been a big rebuild from there.
“What is exciting for us is that, within that, we have lads who have come through our own system who are starting to really shine.”
Nottinghamshire’s victory was brought about through a string of impressive individual performances.
With the bat, a Ben Slater ton and half-centuries for Joe Clarke, Ben Duckett and Haseeb Hameed set the tone through the match.
With the ball, the seamers did the damage as Luke Fletcher claimed figures of five for 28 in the first innings, whilst Dane Paterson and Stuart Broad claimed 11 wickets between them in the game.
The potent attack, spearheaded by the England seamer, twice proved too much for Derbyshire.
"It’s so exciting when you see a player of Stuart's age and experience showing the enthusiasm of an 18/19-year-old," Moores said of Broad.
"Like most of the great players, he seems to get better. He seems to be bowling quicker now than he has ever bowled as well.
“There’s a lot of cricket left in Stuart and If I were an England selector, I would be very pleased with what I was seeing.
"He hammered around the top of off stump and he also showed that he still has in his locker a very aggressive way of bowling within different periods in the game.”
Attention now turns to the tough test of welcoming reigning champions Essex to Trent Bridge; a challenge Moores is relishing off the back of an impressive win.
"What I take confidence from is that, since the start of the shortened 2020 season, we have won most of our games on first innings.
“We have played some really good cricket within that and there is a level of consistency there in terms of getting on top in games that we can take some positives from.
"We are going to have to keep working hard, getting better and being able to play tough cricket against good teams.
“We have a great game coming up against Essex, the champions. That’ll be a really good test to see if we can back-up what we have done."
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Tickets to witness Notts Outlaws’ defence of their Vitality Blast title in 2021 are now on general sale.