ANNUAL REPORT 2019

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY CRICKET CLUB 2019 ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS 18 This is a club that expects to be in Division One of the County Championship and to play knock- out cricket year-in-year out, and we fell well short in the red-ball game last summer. It was an outcome which we certainly didn’t foresee after our performance againstYorkshire in the first game of the season, during which we had much the better of a draw. But once we got onto a run of defeats, starting against Somerset prior to the 50-over competition and continuing against Essex in early May, we couldn’t find a way of turning it around. We made changes to the side, and brought in players such as the world-class Ravichandran Ashwin, but never managed to stop the slide. On an individual basis, it proved to be a difficult year for many of our players.We are still making our way through a period of transition after losing several experienced heads in recent years, and that is taking time. The signings we made last winter arrived with very high ceilings of potential, but there’s no doubt it’s challenging moving to a big club and playing at a Test match ground and that’s something Joe Clarke, Ben Duckett, Ben Slater and Zak Chappell will hope to come to terms with more quickly next season. Ambitions at a club like Notting- hamshire are very high, and we hope that the past year has given them time to adjust. I have every faith that they will come back better for the experience. Despite the tribulations of the County Championship campaign, it would be remiss for me not to recognise the contributions of those – like Ashwin – who displayed some red-ball consistency last season. An injury-free Chris Nash enjoyed a much-improved campaign, Luke Fletcher showed a willingness to do the hard work that was required throughout the season and the emergence of Liam Patterson-White as a left-arm spinning all-rounder was hugely encouraging. We hope to see some of our young prospects follow Liam’s lead in taking their opportunity in the first team next year. Meanwhile, the chance to blood Joey Evison in the four-day game againstWarwickshire in September was invaluable. He’s one of a num- ber of talented youngsters we’ve The 2019 season will be remembered as one of vastly contrasting emotions. While our overall limited-overs record remained good, there can be no getting away from the fact that our performances and results in four-day cricket were simply not acceptable. M I C K N EWE L L F I RST XI REPORT Liam Patterson-White