Steven Mullaney says he’ll continue to pester his captain for a bowl, because he loves to be at the heart of the battle.
The Nottinghamshire all-rounder, whose day job in the four-day format is batting at the top of the order, took three wickets with his medium pace last time out against Yorkshire at Scarborough.
“I kept badgering Ready for a bowl, really,” he laughed.
“I love getting one over the batsmen – I love the competition.
“It was a bit overcast, we didn’t have a toss, we decided to bowl first and it was swinging, probably the most it has for me all year.
“Obviously, if you put the ball in the right area enough times, you should get rewards – and, luckily last week, that went my way.
“I’ll keep working on my bowling skills and hopefully in the next three games I get to do it again.”
With the bat, Mullaney has been Nottinghamshire’s standout performer of 2016. His 1,025 first-class runs this summer is already a career-best haul, cementing his position at the top of the order.
“I’ve just been working on basics with Peter Moores, just keeping it really simple,” said the former Lancashire all-rounder.
“All I’ve tried to do is protect the top of off-stump and let natural instinct takeover from any loose deliveries.
“That’s what I’ve done all year and it seems to be working – so I’m not going to try and change it.
“I’ve been through all the technical changes every time you fail and it doesn’t work, so I’m a bit more experienced and I trust my technique a bit more. I’m hoping to get a couple more big scores before the end of the season.
“I’m opening the batting and, at the minute, I don’t want to bat anywhere else. I feel established, but still wanting to develop my game.
“If Mick (Newell) or Ready asked me to bat in the middle-order, then of course I’d do it, but I feel I’ve made a decent fist of it and my partnership with Jake Libby is progressing as we go.
“We’ve had a couple of decent partnerships and our games complement each other. I’m slightly more aggressive than Jake and he’s more of a traditional opening batsman, which bodes well for each of us.”
Mullaney, an ever present for Nottinghamshire in 2016 across all formats, says Nottinghamshire must finish the season with a trio of victories if they are to avoid Specsavers County Championship relegation.
“We’re in a no-losing position. We have to win three from three,” he said.
“All we can focus on is starting well tomorrow morning and winning that first hour against Durham. We can’t look too far ahead.
“If we lose this game we’re more or less buried, so we’re going to look to tomorrow morning’s session and try and win that, to put us in a strong position going into the rest of day one.
“We’ll turn up, dust ourselves off and concentrate on tomorrow. What’s done is done and what will be will be. We’ve just got to try and play our best cricket over the next 12 days.
“There’s been a few draws at Durham this year, but more or less every team in the division needs to win, so you’d expect most pitches to be result-pitches. I’m sure the best team over the next four days will win.”
Traverse Trent Bridge from the skies with our inaugural zip wire event on Sunday 4 September, raising funds for the Trent Bridge Community Trust.
The Trust’s latest charity event provides the opportunity to see the iconic Nottingham venue as never seen before, from 25 metres high, travelling 190 metres at speeds of up to 40mph.