Nottinghamshire Players' Numbers Explained

When Riki Wessels left Trent Bridge for pastures new he proudly signed off on Twitter as “#615”. This refers to his numbering in the hierarchy of Notts first class cricketers, but how are players numbered and where does the clock start?

Well the start positioning of the clock is the tricky point. Should the clock start at 1890 when the championship officially started? Well this would be to pardon the pun, plain Daft, as all true Notts supporters would know that the Notts team were well established far before then and were the leading team in 1870s and 1880s when the championship existed but in a less formal context than it is today. Pre 1890 the champion county was decided by the newspapers of the day based on results and standard of the opposition played. So when did Notts first play a match? The club was founded according to Playfair in 1841, but as a Nottinghamshire team existed before then, Trent Bridge becoming a cricket ground in 1838. The Cricket Archive website has Nottinghamshire first playing in 1835, when they faced Sussex at the Royal New Ground, Brighton on 27th, 28th, 29th August 1835. However before this date a team labelled Nottingham played first class cricket with the team containing many of the players who played in the 1835 fixture. Peter Wynne-Thomas the eminent Notts historian therefore started his numbering of players from the initial first class fixture played by Nottingham/Notts which was played on 24th, 25th, 26th July 1826 at Darnall New Ground in Sheffield where Nottingham faced the combined might of Sheffield and Leicester. Sheffield and Leicester winning the fixture by an innings and 203 runs. The highlight of the game being Tom Marsden scoring the first ever double century in first class cricket scoring 227 before being caught and bowled by Tom Barker the Carlton born Nottingham player. The Nottingham team was

T Barker

P Bramley

W Clarke

J Dennis

C Goodall

C Jarvis

G Jarvis

J Kettleband

G Smith

G Thorpe

R Warsop

The Nottingham club played 15 first class matches between 1826-1834 with two fixtures in 1848.In total Nottingham/Notts have contested 3158 first-class matches using 651 separate players, with the latest (number 651) being Lyndon James. The players who appeared in FIRST CLASS CRICKET for Nottingham/Notts are numbered in chronological order based on their first appearance. If more than one player appeared in the same match, players are sorted in alphabetical order. Players who have appeared solely in List A and/or Twenty 20 cricket for Notts are not allocated a number. For the record the following are milestone players

Number 100 -  Thomas Bignall (60 games between 1863 and 1878)

Number 200 - Herbert William Emmitt (2 games in 1888)

Number 300 - William Riley (80 games between 1909 and 1914, killed in action in Flanders in 1917)

Number 400 - Norman Wilfred Hill (280 games between 1953 and 1968, club captain in 1966 and 1967)

Number 500 - Steven Robert Mee 1 match in 1984 (he shared his debut against Cambridge University at Trent Bridge on the 30^th June 1984 with Kevin Evans, David Fraser-Darling and our current Director of Cricket Mick Newell!)

Number 600 - Ashwell Gavin Prince 4 matches for Notts in 2008

Samit Patel (number 568) who is currently Notts longest serving first class player made his debut on the 3rd July 2002 against the might of West Indies A. The respective teams that day were

Notts

GE Welton

V Atri

BM Shafayat

KP Pietersen

SR Patel

WR Smith

GD Clough

WM Noon (captain/keeper)

TE Savill

PJ McMahon

MN Malik

West Indies A

*D Ganga (captain)

DJ Pagon

DS Smith

RS Morton

RO Hinds

DJ Bravo

LMP Simmons

KH Hibbert (keeper)

MI Black

TL Best

JJC Lawson

MAG