Notts captain Dan Christian is a former Australian international who has played T20 cricket around the world, but taking the Outlaws to finals day would be up there with his proudest achievements.
Christian’s men face Essex Eagles in the quarter-final of the competition at Trent Bridge on Monday (6.30pm), and the 33-year-old will continue to give them licence to play fearless cricket.
“You need to go out and play your shots,” he said.
“If you lose a few wickets early, maybe if you play your way to 140, nine times out of ten it’s not enough.
“I think you’ve just got to keep playing with that freedom – and it’s worked really well for us.
“It certainly helps knowing you’ve got some good players in after you, albeit you never want to leave it to the next man.
“We’ve been playing really well and everyone’s contributed at some stage in the games,” the overseas skipper said.
“The boys are playing some really good cricket, so hopefully we’ll keep cruising into the final.”
The Outlaws lost their opening two matches in the NatWest T20 Blast competition, getting Christian’s captaincy off to a testing start.
But the Victoria & Hobart Hurricanes all-rounder insists he never got too downbeat and – with Notts embarking on an eight-match winning run – the big-hitter from down under has thoroughly enjoyed his first experience of captaincy.
“There was a little bit of a hiccup in the first two games with a close loss against Birmingham and then getting done by Durham, but even in those games I felt we were not that far away,” he said. “It’s nice that we’ve been able to put it all together and get on a bit of a roll.
“It’s a pretty long campaign, 14 matches, and we did enough in those games to show that we are good enough to make a quarter-final.
“Since then it’s been great; obviously it makes it a hell of a lot easier when you’re winning,” added Christian, who has blasted 304 runs at 50.66 and a strike-rate of 170.78 in the tournament to date.
“The boys have been doing a fantastic job and there are a lot of experienced players in there.
“It makes it very easy when the bowlers know how they want to bowl and the batsmen have been around the game a lot. It’s been a pretty easy job, and very enjoyable.
“If we can get through to finals day, to do that, as captain, would be really special. It would be right up there for sure.”
Notts Outlaws squad to face Essex Eagles (from): Jake Ball, Dan Christian, Luke Fletcher, Harry Gurney, Michael Lumb, Steven Mullaney, Samit Patel, Chris Read, Greg Smith, Imran Tahir, Brendan Taylor, Riki Wessels and Luke Wood.