An Evening with Steven Mullaney

On Thursday 21^st February 2019 Steven Mullaney was the guest speaker at an excellent evening with the Nottinghamshire Cricket Lovers Society. The Master of Ceremonies was local stalwart Colin Slater.

JAG reports:

The format of the evening was a question and answer session, below is a summary of some of the items discussed:-

Would he be opening the batting in 2019?

Not necessarily, he will bat anywhere in the order, other than coming in after Harry Gurney. Without giving too much away it might depend on who the overseas player is.

Who picks the Nottinghamshire team?

It is a combination of Peter Moores, Paul Franks and the captain, but the captain does have the final say on close decisions, as the captain has to be confident with the team he has been given.

How did his first year as captain go?

Peter Moores splits the season into chunks and it was a roller-coaster first five championship matches when Nottinghamshire won three of those games and were top of the championship. Jake Ball and Harry Gurney bowled brilliantly at Old Trafford.

Nottinghamshire had a good run in the Royal London winning the last three groups matches to qualify, but then were outplayed by a good Kent side.

The last six weeks to the season were very tricky, especially as the new signings were going off in the background. Nottinghamshire struggled during that time and only had two pace bowlers in Harry Gurney and Luke Fletcher, and Fletcher played despite having an injured hip. Against Essex the third and fourth seamers were debutant Lyndon James and Steve himself.

Obviously Nottinghamshire badly missed the injured Jake Ball and Stuart Broad did not play red ball cricket during that time.

Ben Slater and Ben Duckett joined and with no disrespect to their former clubs both realised how hard Nottinghamshire players are made to work.

After a brief holiday period the team reported back in November, and he is very confident for the 2019 season. He had recently been playing in India with the Lions and both he and Andy Flower had been very impressed with the performance of Zak Chappell. He also stated that Notts would effectively have five new players because Paul Coughlin will be like a new player.

Was the recent experience his first trip to India?

No he had been there twice before once with the England Under 19’s and secondly a nine day pre season camp in 2010. He has also had seven spells playing in Australia in the Winter. He stated that all the trips abroad enabled him to grow up quicker and be more independent. In the recent trip England came across Indian sides with a lot more international experience (especially combined ODI caps) than the Lions. He was, especially impressed by K. L. Rahul , who he would love to see play for Nottinghamshire , and Rishab Pant.

Who are the emerging talent within the Nottinghamshire squad?

Lyndon James of the academy, Jack Blatherwick did well in the Royal London, Liam Patterson-White, and he had been really impressed with young batsman Joey Evison, who had opened with him in a training camp in Oman, and had made 90 in

India with the Academy only yesterday. Notts are well aware that the last batsman to emerge from the Academy to the first team was Samit Patel.

Where are the current players?

Joe Clarke has spent the first winter in four in the UK, Luke Fletcher is in India and Chris Nash is in South Africa.

Who will the overseas player be for 2019?

He is not allowed to say as negotiations are ongoing, but sometime you have to be patient to get the best players as they can get injured in the winter.

What does he think of the option to have uncontested tosses in the championship?

He would prefer to have a toss in every game.

What is the chance of Matt Carter playing more games in 2019?

Trent Bridge is never going to spin in early April, but Nottinghamshire do have four championship matches on out-grounds in 2019, which should give him more opportunities.

What has he been doing in the winter?

He was supposed to have played T20 cricket in New Zealand but had to cancel due to back spasms.

How did he become captain at Nottinghamshire?

He had always made it clear to both Peter Moores and Mick Newell that he wanted to be captain, he has read books and attended leadership courses. He recommends ‘Legacy’ a book by James Kerr, the legendary New Zealand Rugby Union player. He has also had a lot of help from Peter Moores, who has given talks to others sports players including Arsenal.

What was it like taking over form Chris Read?

They are different characters Chris Read was very introverted and calmer than him, as he is very extroverted.

Who will be the reserve keeper for 2019?

He is not sure but will find out shortly because Tom Moores is not going to South Africa. It could be either Ben Duckett or Joe Clarke.

For a number of years Nottinghamshire have had terrible September runs in the Championship, what is being done to address this?

The team had a meeting in October to analyse this. There are a lot of reasons for this in 2018, and Peter Moores is trying to address this and the aim is to build a team to win the County Championship. There was not enough pressure on the batmen in 2018 and as the first test is not until July, Nottinghamshire are hopeful that Stuart Broad might be made available for more matches.

Do Nottinghamshire analyse the opposition?

Yes they have a full time analyst that will provide a drop-box of video evidence on the strengths and weaknesses on the relevant opposition bowlers or batsman where applicable.

What is the situation with Alex Hales?

Notts hope he will be available for four or five Royal London matches, prior to the world cup and he should be available for the whole of the T20 competition. He is very much a big occasion player and works very hard on his fitness.

 What about Steve Mullaney and other sports?

 He played for England Under 15s at Rugby League and had trials with St Helens. He still goes back to watch Leigh, but he had to choose between Rugby League and cricket. He also follows Manchester City and he knows the Media Manager there and gets to see a few games per season.

If he could win one trophy in 2019 what would it be?

Definitely 100% the County Championship, he wants to captain Nottinghamshire to the title. The best team always wins the championship, but sometimes the best team does not always win one day competitions.

What does he think of the proposed 100 ball competition?

England had to do something to try to compete with the IPL, Big Bash and other similar competitions. Details are still undecided but it will be different to potentially be involved in a player auction as he has never been involved in one of those.

Steven gave excellent, honest answers throughout the evening in front of a large appreciative audience.

Friday, yesterday, on the Notts website a one on one question and answers session with Steven Mullaney was released, following very similar questions and answers.

http://socsi.in/m_JwhVn