Born in Doncaster on 6 February 1993, Brett Alan Hutton came through the Nottinghamshire Academy system, first playing in the County Under-13s in 2006. He progressed through all of the age group teams to the Second Eleven, in 2010, and a debut in First-Class cricket in 2011. He went on to play 33 First-Class games and 10 limited-overs matches for Nottinghamshire but elected to join Northamptonshire at the end of 2017 in the hope of playing more regularly in all forms of the game.
A right-arm pace bowler and an attacking lower middle-order batsman, Hutton’s first senior appearance for Nottinghamshire came in Abu Dhabi in March 2011 when he played in the Champion County match against the MCC. Later that summer, he featured for England Under-19s in the home One-Day International series against South Africa Under-19s. He then toured Bangladesh and Australia with the youth side and played in the 2012 ICC Under-19 World Cup in Australia, ultimately playing in 17 One-Dayers at this level.
Hutton continued his development in the Nottinghamshire Second Eleven. He made a handful of senior starts in 2011 and 2013, including his Championship debut at the end of 2013, when Somerset’s Marcus Trescothick was his maiden First-Class victim. In 2015, on the back of good returns and some useful scores in the Seconds, he appeared more regularly in the County Championship. He played in nine matches and took 37 wickets, with a Notts career best of 5-29 and 10 wickets in the match against Durham.
Over the next two seasons, Hutton took a further 68 First-Class wickets and was the Club’s leading Championship wicket-taker in 2017. He again took 10 wickets in a match, claiming five Derbyshire wickets in each innings of the Championship match at Derby in August 2017.
In his career with Nottinghamshire, Hutton took 106 wickets in 33 red ball starts. With the bat he contributed 970 runs, with a top score of 74 against Durham in May 2016.
While Hutton established himself as a frequent starter in First-Class cricket, he was unable to make a breakthrough in white-ball cricket. He played in nine List-A matches for Notts, appeared just once in T20 and he did not feature in either format during the Outlaws’ white-ball double winning season of 2017. His desire to play in all forms of cricket was a major factor in his decision to decline a new deal at Trent Bridge and move to Northamptonshire. His departure was a blow to the Club and to the Trent Bridge faithful who always warmed to the enthusiastic approach of a home-grown player.
In 2018, he took 45 Championship wickets and in the following year helped Northamptonshire to a second-place finish in Division 2 and promotion to the top flight of the County Championship.
At the close of the 2020 season, Brett Hutton returned to Trent Bridge and signed a new three-year contract with Nottinghamshire CCC. In the 2023 season he seized the opportunity offered by long-term absences of other opening bowlers to establish himself as a potent new-ball force, finishing the season with 62 wickets at 21.40 with six five-wicket hauls and a career-best of 6-45 against Somerset. Hutton finished as the leading wicket-taker in the County Championship across both divisions.
November 2023
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 613