‘FAMOUS FIVE’ GO TO TRENT BRIDGE
Not an undiscovered Enid Blyton yarn but the story of a record day for Nottinghamshire debutants.
On 25 April 2001, quite late in the season given how early the games start twenty-five years on, five players made their Notts First-Class debuts: Greg Blewett, Gareth Clough, Richard Logan, Kevin Pietersen, and Greg Smith.
This was the highest number of First-Class ‘newbies’ for Notts since five also debuted in 1845!
There were also five debuts in the second First-Class match, played at Darnall New Ground in Sheffield in 1827. The year before that, the very first First-Class match involving a Nottingham team had been played at the same ground when, naturally enough, there were eleven first-timers.
Just to put that into perspective, there were 11 in Game One in 1826, five in Game Two in 1827, and five, twenty-eight games later in 1845 – that’s the 1st, 2nd and 29th First-Class games and then almost three thousand games until five in 2001... game 2,855!
In terms of the modern game, then, the match at home to Durham was a record for Notts. All five had previous First-Class experience, three of them in their native country.
Greg Blewett was an established Australian international, having played 46 Tests, from his first v England at Adelaide in 1995 to his last, in 2000 against New Zealand at Wellington; Blewitt had also played 32 ODIs.
His experience and class was clear from the start and he joined the ranks of batters to make a hundred in their first First-Class match for Notts, plundering the Durham attack for 133 in a drawn game (there was no play on the final day).
In his one season as Nottinghamshire’s overseas player, he played in all 16 County Championship (Division Two) matches, scoring 1,292 runs at 47.85 with five centuries and five fifties.
Gareth Clough had played one First-Class game for Yorkshire – he was born in Leeds – before moving to Trent Bridge. In that Durham match he took his maiden First-Class wicket, Martin Love, lbw for 23. Clough played 11 First-Class matches for Notts between 2001-2007, taking 16 wickets and scoring one half-century. He played mainly List-A and T20 cricket for The Outlaws, claiming 117 wickets in the white-ball formats.
In June 2007, Gareth Clough was largely responsible for that rarity, a maiden T20 over; rarer still, it was the first of Derbyshire's innings - and yet Clough gets no credit. The over was started by Charlie Shreck, who took a fierce blow on the shin from the first ball and had to retire from the game. Clough completed the over and the opening batters, perhaps upset by Shreck's injury, took no runs from the remaining five balls. So a maiden T20 over was not credited to either bowler!
Richard Logan was a highly-rated fast bowling prospect with England appearances at Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 level when he accepted an offer from Nottinghamshire and came to Trent Bridge in 2000, even though he had played eight first-team games for Northants that season. He had a good game on debut for Notts, taking 4-69.
He was part of the Notts squad for four seasons, moving to Hampshire during 2004; he helped his new county to second place in the Championship of 2005 but had the irony of seeing his previous club lift the title.
He played 29 First-Class matches for Notts, scoring 373 runs with a highest of 37no and an average of 11.65; his 88 wickets cost 35.13 with a best return of 6-93. In List-A, he made 17 appearances with a symmetrically satisfying 17 as his top score and 51 wickets at 32.29. His figures improved yet further in T20s, with 12 wickets at 16.66 from his ten games.
Kevin Pietersen is one of cricket's great enigmas. A supremely talented batter with a stellar Test record and yet somehow there remains a sense of promise unfulfilled. He came to Trent Bridge with a dozen First-Class games in his native South Africa behind him – initially as an off-spinner that could bat rather than the dominant middle-order batter that he became.
Pietersen played 58 First-Class games for Notts with a top score of 254no, made v Middlesex, 16 centuries and 32 wickets. He moved to Hampshire for the 2005 season and to Surrey in 2010, though the greater part of his career was with England – 104 Tests, 134 ODIs and 37 T20Is.
Curiously, for someone with his scoring record, ‘KP’ made just 2 on his Notts debut, lbw to James Brinkley. He had, however, already made a hundred for his new county, in a pre-season fixture with Northamptonshire, making 115no as he and Paul Johnson, 168no, put on 294 unbroken after Notts had been reduced to 44-4.
Greg J Smith also joined with First-Class experience in South Africa, with some 70 games for Northerns, Northern Transvaal and others. In the Durham game he picked up a couple of wickets but went on to take 251 First-Class wickets for Notts at 26.69 and twice had ten wickets in a match. His career-best figures were 8-63 for Notts v Essex (match figures 11-74) at Trent Bridge in 2002.
Thankfully for statisticians and historians his Notts career did not overlap with Greg P Smith, a Leicestershire-born seamer who joined Notts in 2015.
The five 2001 debutants were brought to Trent Bridge by Clive Rice, who in 1999 had returned to the home of his triumphs as Notts skipper to be Cricket Manager.
Rice oversaw a raft of recruitment, bringing in four new players for 2000 and our ‘famous five’ for 2001.
(L to R): Greg Blewett, Greg J Smith, Kevin Pietersen, Gareth Clough, Richard Logan)
For the record, the previous five debutants were: in 1827 (v Sheffield at Darnall) – Jemmy Brittain, William Hewitt, William Sheraton, Thomas Trueman, and William Upton; in 1845 (v Kent at the Beverley Ground, Canterbury) – Chappell Batchelor, Samuel Dakin, George Parr, and, remarkably, two ‘Reverends’, Richard Seddon and Philip Williams.
With those previous ‘five-fers’ on away grounds, the match against Durham in 2001 – the 25th anniversary is this week – set the record for debutants for Nottinghamshire in a home match.
April 2026