Notts Outlaws will be looking to return to when winning ways when they travel to New Road to face Worcestershire Rapids in Sunday’s televised NatWest T20 Blast fixture.
After playing all of their opening four matches at Trent Bridge, the Outlaws head for Worcester off the back of Friday evening’s unexpected defeat to Leicestershire Foxes, a result and performance that Mick Newell termed ‘unacceptable’.
Newell, Notts’ Director of Cricket, saw his normally free-flowing top order stutter and fail to reach 150, before defeat was confirmed by the awarding of penalty runs after his side failed to bowl their overs in the allotted time.
“The cut off time was up there on the scoreboard all evening,” fumed Newell. “I could see what was going to happen half an hour earlier.
"They were too slow in taking their positions in the field and there was just too much general chit-chat going on.”
Jake Ball was again the pick of the Outlaws attack on Friday, picking up three wickets at the end of a week that had seen him also record career-best figures of six for 49 in the championship win over Sussex.
“I was a little bit disappointed with the way I bowled on Friday,” said Ball.
“I was probably a little bit loose and went for too many runs but that can happen in T20 cricket, that’s the way T20 goes sometimes.
"We’ll go to Worcester and look to bounce back straight away. We know it’s a fairly long tournament and hopefully we’ll get a few more wins under our belts and get through to the quarter finals again.”
Defeat to their local rivals was a tough pill for the Outlaws’ to stomach, having sent out a side crammed full of attacking firepower, both with bat and ball.
