Mick Newell insisted Nottinghamshire’s players should not allow their poor run in the Twenty20 Cup to affect their performance in the LV County Championship after they suffered their fifth defeat in six Twenty20 Cup matches.
The Outlaws were handed another thrashing with an eight-wicket defeat at Yorkshire Carnegie and as against Leicestershire Foxes on Wednesday, an opposition opening batsman did the damage.
After Notts had reached 155-6, with Adam Voges top-scoring with 82 not out, hitting four sixes and five fours, Yorkshire’s Andrew Gale blasted 91 off 55 balls to help the hosts cruise to their victory target with two overs to spare.
The defeat ends all but mathematical hopes Notts had of reaching the quarter-finals as they go into the competition break, with back-to-back Championship matches at Warwickshire and Hampshire beginning on Saturday.
And Director of Cricket Newell believes his squad will be able to get straight back on the saddle for the four-day games, where they are currently leading Division One by five points.
He said: “We shouldn’t have any concerns about switching back to playing with a red ball. Last year we performed pretty ordinarily in the Twenty20 Cup and then went to Hampshire and produced one of our best performances of the season.
“Playing-wise there is some adjustment to make but it’s something we’ve managed successfully before. We will be having a practice session at Edgbaston tomorrow, which we might not normally do the day after a match, but that should get everyone back into the right kind of mindset - and I would say the players are more confident generally in the Championship.”
Notts chose to bat first at Headingley in a bid to change their fortunes but it made little difference at the start as both Ali Brown and Samit Patel fell for single-figure scores.
Will Jefferson made 36 in combination with Voges to steady the ship but no-one else was able to partner the Australian, who ran plenty of twos with a big boundary on all sides.
Yorkshire’s Naved-ul-Hasan claimed 4-23 to hold back Notts, while Deon Kruis also bowled economically.
Almost from the start, Gale made the total look inadequate, hitting cleanly and finding the gaps in the field to post his career-best Twenty20 score.
With the prospect of a century before the close drawing ever nearer, Gale was eventually bowled by Andre Adams, but Michael Vaughan was unbeaten on 41 at the close as Yorkshire stayed on course for a quarter-final spot.
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