Trent Bridge Annual Report 2018

47 FIRST XI REPORT Looking back on our performances across 2018, I would say we achieved the minimum for a Club of our stature and ambition. Our two main aims were to retain our status in the first division of the Specsavers County Championship, and to play knockout white-ball cricket in both competitions. However, it is disappointing that we didn’t manage to go further in one- day cricket or finish in the top half in the red-ball format. Having achieved promotion as a major part of one of our most successful ever seasons in 2017, it would have been devastating to be relegated.We need to continue earning the right to be a team that plays Division One cricket for as many seasons as possible, as we did successfully for nine years prior to dropping out in 2016. Over the past ten to 15 years, we have tended to play good cricket in April and May – and that happened again this year. If you look at the start of the season, our seam attack regularly included Jake Ball and Stuart Broad – and they helped us win three of our opening four matches. By the end of the season we had lost their experience and international quality; Jake due to injury and Stuart on the back of his England commitments. Luke Fletcher and Harry Gurney had fantastic seasons, taking 80 wickets over the course of a 14-match campaign between them. Having featured heavily in all three competitions, they were running on empty towards the end of the summer. It’s to their credit that they kept running in, giving it their all and not letting their standards slip. We had a brilliant game against Hampshire in May which ended in victory, but we didn’t play as well at home as we would have liked and were outgunned by Essex and Somerset in our final two matches of the season. Our red-ball campaign mirrored the 2017 efforts in many ways, albeit at the opposite end of the table.We played very well in DivisionTwo last year, but by September we didn’t seem to have much left. However, in Division One, your mistakes are even more costly and we were caught out a number of times at the back and of the season. In white-ball cricket, we lacked some of the batting firepower that had helped us achieve such success in 2017, something we have taken steps to address with the signings of Ben Slater, Ben Duckett and Joe Clarke ahead of the new campaign. Ultimately, we were out-skilled in the two knockout games having stumbled a little through the group M I C K N EWE L L F I RST XI REPORT “LUKE FLETCHER AND HARRY GURNEY HAD FANTASTIC SEASONS, TAKING 80 WICKETS OVER THE COURSE OF A 14-MATCH CAMPAIGN BETWEEN THEM.” Mick Newell