Brett Hutton underlined Nottinghamshire’s ability to embrace a positive mindset as crucial as the Green and Golds defied stifling conditions to bowl Glamorgan out on day one in Cardiff.
Having won the toss and opted to bowl first on a day when the mercury rose close to 30°C at Sophia Gardens, Steven Mullaney’s men dismissed their hosts for 318, before closing on 19 without loss.
“I think it’s a decent day for the team. We’re happy with that,” reflected Hutton, who returned figures of 4-76 from 17 overs.
“We obviously chose to bowl in the knowledge that it was going to be quite warm and it wasn’t going to go round corners, but we’re happy to get all ten in the day.”
Alongside bowling 17 overs, Hutton was in the field, alongside his Notts teammates, for north of 84 overs in total on a day where there was little respite from the scorching sunshine.
However, he was magnanimous when looking back at the toil in the field, noting the collective strength of the group and adopting a matter-of-fact approach.
“I think it’s more of a mindset thing,” he explained, when asked about how he overcame the heat. “We’re a good bunch of lads, and all 11 of us know what we’re doing all the time.
“We buy into it; it’s going to be hard work, but cricket’s hard work! We just get the fluids in, get the sun cream on, and just do our job as best we can.
“You’re going to make mistakes, but as long as we’ve got that intent to do the right thing, that’s all we can ask for as a group.”
The decision to bowl first was again explained in mental terms by Hutton, who noted the influence of data analysis in the choice, but stressed the main factor was far more simple.
“There were some stats that backed up the thinking that this is a bowl-first ground, but when we get that backing from our captain, we just have to go out there and do our job as bowlers,” he said.
“I think if we’d lost the toss and we’d have been batting, whatever we’d have done, we just back ourselves to do it better than the opposition.”
With such backing and strong fortitude, the intent from Notts was clear for the Sophia Gardens spectators to see, as they regularly found breakthroughs despite a flat surface which could have led to even further frustration.
At least three wickets fell in each session as Glamorgan were able to post only two partnerships of more than 50 thanks to repeated testing bowling from the visitors.
“We want to maintain our relentlessness; to just keep doing our thing and trust that we’ll get a breakthrough, because they’ll break before us,” revealed Hutton.
“We did that well today where we just kept going and going, and we kept picking the wickets up towards the end of sessions.
“That showed that we wore them down throughout those sessions, which is the way we play our cricket. We just aim to be more resistant and have more longevity than whoever we’re playing.”
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