Lyndon James feels encouraged by his increasing involvement in the Nottinghamshire red-ball side, having approached his overs last season with the requisite dose of injury-forced caution.

The medium-fast seamer bowled a total of 37 overs in the opening weekend contest with Essex, and hopes to make a key contribution and lift the Green and Golds to their first victory of the season against Worcestershire on Friday (11am start).

Peter Moores names a 13-man squad to face the Pears, with Liam Patterson-White included in the squad having missed out in the opening game. 

James expressed his delight with being able to remove the shackles on his contributions to the bowling attack.

“Last summer my overs picked up as we went along,” James explained, “Having a couple of stress fractures the year before, we were pretty hesitant and had to limit my overs last year.

“I’ve worked hard with Kevin Shine and Liam Price to get my body in the best place it could be and now they’ve let me go out to try and become more of an all-out seamer. My body feels good now, so long may that continue.”

Whilst South African international Dane Paterson took the main plaudits for a stylish 5/49 with the ball on his first innings back in the country, James too found form in the Vitality County Championship curtain-raiser with five wickets of his own across the four days.

Pre-season had not necessarily been plain sailing, however, as James admitted there was still plenty of fine-tuning to be undertaken in Notts’ build-up to the new campaign.

“I felt a really good rhythm in the Essex game, but when we went to Abu Dhabi, something wasn’t feeling quite right - I wasn’t getting that rhythm,” he said.

“Shiney and I found some old footage from when I’ve been bowling my better spells; we’ve worked on a couple of things together and it’s all seemed to click in the last couple of games.”

A strong showing with both bat and ball on the first two days of Essex’s visit to West Bridgford displayed promising signs for the Green and Golds against last year’s runners-up, but a handful of missed opportunities were punished by the visitors who won on the final day.

“It was frustrating,” said James, “We did a lot of good things in that game, and to come away with a result like that was very dissapointing for us.

“The beauty of it is that we only have three days between these two matches, so we’ve had to pick ourselves up and get ready to go again on Friday.”

The Essex encounter was the first game in charge as Club Captain for Haseeb Hameed, too, having stood-in as skipper during the visit to Surrey last July and captained in the Metro Bank One Day Cup.

His measured and philosophical approach to leadership has rubbed off well on the Notts dressing room, James said.

“He’s very calm, very methodical and knows what he wants to get out of his players,” he added.

“Under his leadership, you clearly know what your role is and it’s vital to get that from any leader.

“He has full faith in the players that he picks, which gives us confidence to do what we want to do.”

The weekend was also the first opportunity for members to get a glimpse of seam bowler Dillon Pennington and batter Jack Haynes, who both impressed early on with three wickets and a 77-run debut innings respectively.

James was only full of praise for the debutants: “I thought Dillon was really unlucky in the Essex game as he could have come away with a lot more wickets, especially in the first innings where there were quite a few edges that didn’t go to hand.

“Haynesy batted beautifully in that first innings as well, he’s shown such great temperament and high skill. They’re two great additions - plus of similar age to me which is nice - and they’ve fitted in really well amongst the lads.

“We’ve seen a lot of positive signs from everyone in the team, really, so we’re raring to go again on Friday.”