Nottinghamshire's Director of Cricket Mick Newell will rotate his bowling resources during the coming weeks as his side's red and white ball campaigns continue in tandem.
The signing of former Australia international Ben Hilfenhaus, combined with the availability of Stuart Broad for tomorrow’s NatWest T20 Blast match against Leicestershire and the forthcoming two LV= County Championship fixtures, has provided Newell with an embarrassment of fast bowling riches.
And with Luke Wood, Jake Ball and Harry Gurney all having performed impressively in the 159-run victory over Sussex, Newell could be afforded the luxury of some rest and rotation within the height of a punishing county schedule.
“We will probably leave Ben Hilfenhaus until Sunday,” Newell said. “We won’t play him on Friday because we don’t particularly want to change two bowlers in our T20 team.
“We’ll leave Ben until Sunday for his debut then he’ll have two T20s before the four-day game against Somerset.
“We need to be as strong as we can be and we need to get Stuart playing because it’s important for England and for Notts that he plays.
“So we’re going to have a number of seamers fit and available for Taunton (starting Sunday 14 June) if he plays.
“The chances are we’ll need four of them so we have to make sure we pick the right ones.
“We generally play four and Broad and Hilfenhaus are two that will play,” the Director of Cricket continued.
“Then from Jake Ball, Harry Gurney and Luke Wood, two of those three you would expect to play.
“We’ve got a lot of T20 cricket coming up through June so we’ll look at that as well, although I don’t want Luke to play T20 cricket at the present time.
“Jake Ball has been terrific. He has been our best bowler since the pre-season tour.
“Harry Gurney played two of the first three games on very flat pitches and bowled very well.
“Where he’s struggled is on pitches that have done a bit. He’s been a bit more inconsistent with some good balls and some easy scoring balls in-between.
“Against Sussex you saw him get five for 43 – he went for some boundaries, but he bowls quickly, he bowls aggressively and he gets a lot of wickets caught behind the wicket.
“The ball he got Luke Wright with in particular was a skilful ball.
"He is a very skilful bowler, he just sometimes loses his length a little bit on pitches where you would want him to be more consistent.
“Harry and Jake both have the ability to play in all forms of the game so we can share the work around.
“If we’re confident in our bowlers that they can all do a good job, then it won’t be a case of being dropped. It will be a case of being rested for the next game and the next competition.”
Nottinghamshire’s batting, meanwhile, is soon to become shy of Alex Hales and James Taylor, both of whom are available for both T20 fixtures this weekend before departing on international duty for a two-week period during England’s Royal London One-Day Series against New Zealand.
Newell hopes to welcome Michael Lumb back to the fold in time for the match against Somerset and the Director of Cricket also suggested that Will Gidman, who helped turn the game against Sussex in Notts’ favour with a defiant first innings 57, could be in line for a more prominent role in the batting line-up.
“We’ve got some issues around the batting that we need to resolve, and quickly because we’ve got some big games coming up,” Newell said.
“It’s disappointing when so many of your players with the bat haven’t made major contributions.
“But it was a difficult wicket to bat on against the new ball and, after the 35th over onwards, batting was a good deal easier.
“We’re trying to get Lumby fit for Taunton. He will play second team cricket with a view to playing in that game, so that will be one of those two spots filled.
“The captain (Chris Read) won’t be fit, but you could make a case for Will Gidman playing at six or seven like he did for Gloucestershire and batting as much as he is bowling.”
Commenting on his side’s victory over Sussex, Newell believes it highlights the topsy-turvy nature of the first division.
“We’ve given some good performances this year and we’ve given some pretty average ones,” he said.
“But we’ve played some very good cricket over the last two-and-a-half days and we definitely deserved to win.
“Batting was looking very difficult on that first day – it was gloomy, the floodlights were on, we lost the toss and we were under pressure.
“But we’re very pleased with the way we fought back from that and the contribution of Will Gidman and Luke Wood shouldn’t be in any way underestimated.
“I’m sure Luke’s won’t be, but Will’s 57 was a massive input. Even the partnership with Greg Smith, which took us from 55-6, it just started to get us towards a time when batting was easier.
“This game proves that anybody can beat anybody in four-day cricket. It’s going to be a very open competition and we’ve only had six games.
“We should just carry on playing and let’s see where we are in August.”
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