Brett Hutton feels that a break from the rigours of red-ball cricket will prove beneficial as Nottinghamshire return to County Championship action against Warwickshire from Sunday 11 June (11am start).
The seamer is part of a 13-man squad for the fixture.
The seamer took 29 wickets across five appearances in the first block of four-day cricket this summer – second only to Warwickshire’s Chris Rushworth (30) in the top tier – and he believes the time that has been at his disposal to refine his skills in recent weeks will help him maintain his effectiveness.
“With the schedule how it is, you don’t very often get a window in the season where you can get a bit of energy back in the tank,” he said.
“For the likes of me and Dane [Paterson, who has 23 red-ball wickets this summer], we've been able to do a lot of actual practice again where you're not thinking about preparing for a game. Instead, you have the time for a good solid block of technical work and gym work, that are both really important to keep yourself where you want to be.
“We all know that little bad habits can creep in here and there over time, and this gives you the chance to stay on top of them.”
With Stuart Broad in the England fold ahead of this summer’s Ashes series, and with Luke Fletcher and Olly Stone currently on the sidelines through injury, Hutton and Paterson’s experience, as much as their ability, will be crucial in the coming days.
“When you’ve been in the game a while, you know that even if you have a bad couple of overs or a bad spell, you can drag it back,” said the 30-year-old.
“Everyone has a bad patch now and again, but when you’re experienced you always know in the back of your mind what you’re capable of. Maybe if you’re a younger lad, you've not had those good patches to show you what's to come.
“It's just knowing that you can talk to the captain or one of the other bowlers and just say ‘what do you reckon here, what’s causing me to be a bit off?’.
“When you’ve bowled that many overs in your lifetime, you can you can normally correct it and get it back to what you normally do.
“And that’s definitely more important in Division One.
“In Division Two, the better side normally wins, even if they have a little lapse and a bad session. But in the top division it’s really hard to come back. If we open the door for Warwickshire, they’ll step through it and put us under the pump.
“You’ve got to be at it for four days.”
Broad’s absence from the starting XI, having featured in Nottinghamshire’s most recent First-Class fixture, creates a vacancy in the side for the visit of the Bears.
Hutton feels there are many candidates in the squad ready to step up.
“With me and Dane still in the squad, and with Lyndon having been bowling brilliantly all year, we’ve still got seamers who’ve had good starts to the summer,” he said.
“And we've got some lads that are knocking at the door and champing at the bit to play their part. It might not be Fletch or Broady this time, but we’ll still got high quality options that are ready to go.”
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