Mick Newell says red ball cricket will lead the agenda for nine Nottinghamshire first team players, when they head for a pre-season training camp in Dubai.
Fast bowlers Jake Ball, Luke Fletcher, Will Gidman, Harry Gurney, Luke Wood & Brett Hutton will be joined in the UAE by all-rounder Steven Mullaney and the batting duo of Riki Wessels & Greg Smith.
The ten-day trip will depart on 18 February and with the season’s first 20 days all comprising Championship action, the Director of Cricket is encouraging the group to look no further ahead than those five matches.
“What they do out there will depend who they are and where they’re at,” said Newell.
“The primary aim will be to bowl outdoors and mainly with the red ball.
“It will be a variety of things, but there won’t be a huge amount of white ball emphasis because we don’t play one-day cricket until the end of May. There are still five four-day matches to concentrate on first.
“Jake Ball has spent all winter bowling with a white ball, so it’s important that he in particular gets some red ball cricket.
“Over time, people have bowled less and less indoors because of the surfaces on their ankles, knees and things like that," Newell continued.
“Opportunities to go abroad and do it in warmer weather, lots of sports do it and cricket is just the same – and the players contribute to funding it themselves, which is great.”
Bowling Coach Andy Pick will lead the touring party and – although the concept began as a camp primarily for the bowlers – the opportunity to face the hungry quicks in the nets was too good for Wessels and Smith to pass-by.
“It started as a bowling camp so they can go outdoors rather than trudging away in the indoor nets.
“But Greg Smith and Riki Wessels have added themselves to it. They want to go because there won’t be many bowlers here at that time, so the opportunities to bat against bowling will be fairly limited.
“They do a lot of throw downs and work on the bowling machines here in Nottingham, but it’s all on a flat indoor surface.
“They will want to play on grass and this is a great opportunity to go out there, with seven bowlers to face as well as people to give throw-downs, so there will be plenty of chances to bat.”
Wood, whose breakthrough season last term brought 30 wickets at an average of 30, not to mention a maiden first class century, found himself missing out on selection late in the 2015 season, such was the competition for places among the fast bowling group.
Fletcher, an experienced and established campaigner at Trent Bridge, together with new signing from Gloucestershire Gidman, also spent much of the season playing Second XI cricket.
With Australian international Peter Siddle due to arrive as overseas player in time for the new season, the competition for places is showing no signs of letting-up.
Newell wouldn’t have it any other way, insisting that every one of his pace bowlers will be needed during the course of the campaign.
“We’ve got a number of bowlers, but we’re going to need a number of bowlers to get us through the season," he said.
“On this camp and then the trip to Barbados there is an awful lot of players with an awful lot to prove, and that’s exciting,” he said.
“Very few players can put their hands up and say ‘I am definitely going to play in the first match of the season.’
“You want that competition and they need to be out-bowling each other in training as well as in the pre-season matches.
“What we also want to do is try and get our cricketers playing different formats of the game more,” the Director of Cricket added.
“Luke and Brett in particular, who have played very little white ball cricket, we’d like them to start playing some more, so they are developed in all forms of the game.
“Initially last year it was about letting those lads settle into one format of the game without having to worry too much about the one-day or Twenty20 game that was coming up.
“But they won’t want to get bracketed as one-format players and there’s no reason why they should be.
“Now they’ve had a little taste of four-day cricket, they’re a little bit older and more experienced and we can look at developing that bowling squad across all three formats.”
Nottinghamshire group for the pre-season training camp in Dubai: Jake Ball, Luke Fletcher, Will Gidman, Harry Gurney, Brett Hutton, Steven Mullaney, Greg Smith, Riki Wessels and Luke Wood.
The 2015 season saw dramatic last-gasp four day victories, thrilling limited-overs contests and an historic Investec Ashes Test, all in the unique surroundings of Trent Bridge.
Next season, we’d wager, will be no less enthralling and frankly we’d hate for you to miss out.