County Championship 8th (W2, D8, L4)
Captain Haseeb Hameed
Words like ‘transition’ and ‘development’ were used – with some justification – to explain a season that was both disappointing and yet full of remarkable performances and much promise for future years.
To finish eighth – one place lower than in 2023 – in the County Championship, with safety only ensured on the third day of the final match of the season, was well below what the Club or fans had hoped for but there were mitigating factors.
The loss for the greater part of the season of the previous year’s most effective bowlers, Hutton through injury and Paterson on protracted paternity leave, tested the bowling resources; which were then further tried when Dillon Pennington was called up for England, only to be replaced by team-mate Olly Stone when Pennington, too, was injured.
Injury also meant that Josh Tongue – one of three players recruited from Worcestershire – played no part in the season at all.
Poor weather throughout the summer also contributed to the relatively high number of drawn games.
All that being said, there was much for Notts and their supporters to applaud.
In his first season as captain, Haseeb Hameed scored 1,091 runs at 51.95, the highlight of which was 247no against Lancashire at Trent Bridge.
That is the highest score ever made by a Notts opener carrying their bat through a completed innings. His marathon batting stint meant Hameed was on the field of play for the entire game, another rare event.
His double hundred was part of a record-breaking sequence in which three different players, Hameed, Ben Duckett and Joe Clarke, each scored 200+ in each of three consecutive county matches, a feat unparalleled in Notts history and, quite possibly, in the records of all county cricket.
Duckett made 218 versus Warwickshire at Edgbaston and Clarke 213no against Somerset at Taunton. Clarke put on 392 in a new record third wicket partnership for Notts alongside New Zealand’s Will Young, who contributed 174no.
Even their batting exploits were eclipsed later in the season by 19-year-old Freddie McCann. A product of the Notts Academy, McCann made his First-Class debut away at Durham and scored 51 in the first innings. He was to do even better at home to champions-elect Surrey, making 154 to lead Notts almost to first innings parity and ensure a very creditable draw.
In the next home game, the last of the season, McCann made 130 against Warwickshire and thus became the first player in the long history of Nottinghamshire and Trent Bridge to make a hundred in each of his first two innings on the ground!
Not only that, but he became the first Notts batter to score a century and a one-fifty in their debut season.
Kyle Verreynne, the South African wicketkeeper-batter signed to help Notts negotiate the crucial last stages of the Championship, scored 148no in the same innings as well as impressing behind the stumps in his three games.
McCann and Verreynne were two of seven First-Class debutants for Nottinghamshire in 2024. Jack Haynes and Dillon Pennington were the other two to join in the close season from Worcestershire and each made an early impact.
Pennington had taken 31 wickets at 23.80 in the first eight matches, to earn himself a call up to the England Test squad. An unfortunate injury in a match away to Lincoln meant he took no further part in the season.
Haynes made 77 on debut against Essex and although that was his highest score of the First-Class campaign, he was an ever-present in the side and featured in a number of important partnerships.
Rob Lord was signed from Cheshire in mid-season and made an immediate impression, taking 5-45 in a Metro Bank 50-over match against Surrey at Guildford and finishing with 11 wickets in that competition, the top wicket-taker in List-A cricket for his new county.
These performances earned him a place in the First Eleven and he played in the last four matches of the season.
Jacob Duffy, a New Zealand international in limited overs cricket, joined Notts for the last two matches of the Championship and contributed six wickets across those fixtures with a best of 4-60 against Kent at Canterbury.
Without doubt, the most impressive newcomer was Farhan Ahmed – at 16years 189 days the youngest ever First-Class debutant for Notts – and he made that initial appearance against the strongest side in Division One, Surrey.
Farhan took 7-140 in the game’s first innings to become the youngest player in Notts history to take five wickets or more on debut and embellished that performance later by adding three second innings wickets to become not just the youngest to take ‘ten-fer’ for Nottinghamshire but the youngest in the history of county cricket. For good measure, he took the record off one WG Grace!
Fittingly, Farhan Ahmed and Freddie McCann shared the ‘Young Player of the Year’ award when the end-of-season honours were handed out at Trent Bridge.
Away from the County Championship, The Outlaws’ white-ball season was, if anything, even more of a disappointment – with the side failing to qualify for the knock-out stage of either the T20 Vitality Blast or the Metro Bank One-Day Cup; the latter particularly galling as Trent Bridge was chosen as the venue for the competition final.
Again, there were some notable individual performances – both Ben Slater and Haseeb Hameed scored two centuries in the Metro Bank competition, with Rob Lord’s 5-45 the best bowling return.
In the T20 Blast, The Outlaws lost their first five games, putting further qualification almost out of reach, and won just one of the seven home matches (to be fair, two were rained off as ‘no result’). Joe Clarke, skippering the team, hit the highest score of the campaign, 79, in one of the games that fell victim to the rain. Olly Stone took the most wickets, 15, and had the best analysis of 3-30 against Birmingham Bears.
Fazal Haque of Afghanistan and Ben Lister from New Zealand were the two overseas stars signed for the T20 competition but neither were able to make sufficient impact to help The Outlaws get through the group stage.
Trent Bridge hosted the West Indies for the second Test of the summer, which England won by 241 runs. Australia visited for an ODI in September and won comfortably, with Travis Head’s 154no the highlight.
In addition to the county and international fixtures, Trent Bridge was the home base for The Blaze women’s squad – who won the T20 Charlotte Edwards Cup – and the men’s and women’s sides of Trent Rockets in The Hundred.
The idea of ‘transition’ referred to earlier is best reflected in the announcement that Notts stalwart Luke Fletcher – the Bulwell Bomber – was to leave the club at the end of the season after 17 years of determination and dedication.
In an emotional farewell prior to the start of day three of the last match of the season – at home to Warwickshire – Luke was presented with mementoes of his time at Trent Bridge and said farewell to his legion of fans. "This place is so special", he said, "I never thought coming here as a 16-year-old that I'd have the career that I have".
Across nearly two decades, he claimed six titles, beginning with County Championship in 2010.
He went on to win the T20 Blast (2017/2020), and the One Day Cup on two occasions (2013/2017) and Division Two of the County Championship (2022).
Fletcher was given artwork with a selection of images from across the years, featuring some of his personal highlights, presented by Chair Andy Hunt and Vice Chair Richard Stevenson.
During the County Championship fixture v Surrey, the Trent Bridge Heritage team staged lunchtime talks on each day on the topic of WWI and the players that ‘served and survived’. All sessions were well attended, including one by Philip Paine from Surrey, author of ‘The 48’, a book about Surrey players and members killed during the conflict. There was a complementary display in the Museum Room to accompany the talks.
As the season drew to a close, the Club unveiled plans to re-develop the historic Trent Bridge Pavilion. Opened in 1886, the Pavilion has been added to and altered many times in the passing years but now needs more extensive renovation to bring the accommodation for players and match officials up to 21st Century standards. The plans, which will see the essential shape and style of the famed building retained, were approved and at time of writing, proposals were being finalised for work to start in the winter of 2024.
Scorecards and stats can be seen here
October 2024