County Championship 6th (W5, D5, L6)
Friends Life T20 Quarter Final
Clydesdale Bank 40-over 2nd in Group
Captain Chris Read
Defending the Championship won in 2010 proved beyond Notts, despite beginning the campaign with successive wins against Hampshire, Yorkshire and Worcestershire. Even in those games, the side was not scoring the volume of runs required to sustain a title challenge and the batting struggled all season.
Alex Hales was the only batter to pass 1,000 First-Class runs and he also made the highest score of the season, 184, and finished with the best average, 47.04.
Andre Adams, Notts Player of the Season, led the way with the ball, taking 67 wickets at 22.61; his unavailability through injury certainly affected the team’s performances and contributed to the slip from top to sixth.
The subsequent batting difficulties were not evident in the season’s curtain-raiser against Oxford University at The Parks. Adam Voges, 165, and Aly Brown, seeing Notts to 487-7dec in a high-scoring draw.
Eleven wickets from Andre Adams and a century by Samit Patel were the key performances in a nine wicket win over Hampshire at Trent Bridge.
Up at Headingly, Notts made a remarkable recovery to win against Yorkshire by 58 runs. Dismissed for 143 in the first innings, they then watched the home side rattle up 336 for a substantial lead. Notts matched that total, all out for 337, and thus set the very gettable target of 145; three wickets each for Luke Fletcher, Charlie Shreck and Paul Franks saw Yorkshire hustled out for just 86.
A third good win followed – beating Worcestershire at Trent Bridge by three wickets. Five wickets by Adams was the best performance but this was very much a team win – scores of 382 and 266-7 against the visitors’ 315 and 328.
The early season form seemed to dissipate and Notts went without a win for the next seven matches. Jonny Bairstow’s 205 steered Yorkshire to 534-9 dec; he added 151 for the ninth wickets with Ryan Sidebottom, 45, who had returned to his home county after six successful seasons with Notts. Nottinghamshire replied with 428 all out and the game ended in a draw.
Notts were required to follow on in the match against Sussex at Hove and even an improved second innings could not prevent the hosts gaining a comfortable 9 wicket win. Warwickshire won by the same margin at Trent Bridge, making 376 (Ian Bell 139) and bowling Notts out for 117 and 318.
Worcestershire gained revenge for their earlier defeat by winning at home by six wickets in a match that saw the First-Class debut for Rikki Wessels, who made 67 in his first Championship innings.
Lancashire, the eventual champions, won, also by six wickets, at Trent Bridge, Stephen More making 124 and Sajid Mahmood taking five wickets in each Notts innings. Sam Wood made his Notts debut in unusual circumstances, coming in as a substitute on day three for Samit Patel, who was called up England duties.
James Hildreth, 137, and Craig Kieswetter, 164, put on 290 for Somerset’s fifth wicket but Hales responded with 184 to help Nottinghamshire to a draw. The next game, away to Hampshire at Southampton, was also a draw – Samit Patel with 7-87 being the main contributor.
Notts got back to winning ways, beating Lancashire at Southport by 129 runs. Greg Chapple took 6-70 for the home side but Andre Adams and Darren Pattinson combined to bowl Lancs out for 128.
A century by Durham opener Michael di Venuto was matched by Chris Read’s 133 and the match at Chester-le-Street ended as a draw.
Notts travelled from one corner of the country to the other – drawing with Somerset at Taunton where the loss of the second day ensured the result. Andre Adams took 6-33 in the home side’s only innings and West Indies star Darren Bravo played the first of his four First-Class matches for Notts.
A century from Alex Hales laid the foundations of a 67-run victory over Durham at Trent Bridge but Notts then lost the last two matches of the Championship.
Three separate centuries – by Ian Westwood, Jim Troughton and Rikki Clarke – took Warwickshire to 574-7 dec. Notts made 238 and, following-on, 222 to lost by an innings and 114 runs at Edgbaston. At home to Sussex, they lost again, by an innings and 5 runs, Murray Goodwin’s 170 being the principal cause.
In his report, Mick Newell said of the white-ball competitions: “The group stage of the Friends Life T20 was a very enjoyable time and our home form in front of big crowds at Trent Bridge gave us genuine momentum ahead of the quarter-final draw.
“Winning the North Group and then finding Somerset in fourth place in the South Group was unfortunate to say the least. Neutral observers saw our respective teams as the strongest in the competition and the quarter-final provided a dramatic finish as we found ourselves on the wrong side of Kieron Pollard once more”.
“Our resurgence in the Clydesdale Bank 40 was the most pleasing element of the latter stages of the season. We had been all but written off after losing three of our first four fixtures but maintained good form thereafter to finish second in Group C”.
In the Test Match at Trent Bridge that summer, the bowling of Tim Bresnan – 5-48 – helped dismiss India for 158 in the second innings; Ian Bell’s 159 had put England in a strong position that they duly won by 319 runs.
March 2026
Scorecards and stats can be seen here