It may have been Haseeb Hameed who lifted Nottinghamshire’s first County Championship trophy in 15 years, but the captain says the credit must go to his playing group.

“It’s so, so special. There’s not a set of lads I’d want to do it with more than the group we’ve got here,” Hameed told Trent Bridge Live, moments after being presented with the trophy.

“It’s a really special group of players and people, and I’m hugely privileged and honoured to be given the opportunity to lead them every single day.”

The Bolton-born opener, who enjoyed his most prolific Championship season on record with the bat, also emphasised that the composition of the squad he leads, noting that five regulars are aged 26 or below, should provoke great excitement.

“The group of players we’ve got… you look at the average age, and it’s a really exciting time for the club,” he said.

“We know we’ll have to keep pushing ourselves, keep pushing our standards and keep moving forward as a club, and I’m sure the group of players that we’ve got, and the people we’ve got leading us and coaching us, will make sure we do that.”

Hameed’s opening partner Ben Slater also added to the praise on the younger members of the squad, crediting one particular man with instilling early belief.

“Credit goes to Ferg [O’Neill] for how he came into the dressing room as a [24-year-old], the belief he had,” said Slater.

“I think we looked at him at times and thought ‘you’re daft, here’, the stuff he was saying after four games. But how confident he was rubbed off on everyone else.”

O’Neill, the wave-making Australian who ran rampant in April to claim 21 wickets in just four games at an average of just 17.90 apiece, was one of seven men to take a five-wicket haul for Nottinghamshire in 2025.

Such consistent performances across the board have been called out as a cornerstone of the success by the coaching staff on several occasions, and Paul Franks continued the theme following the celebrations.

“Eight different blokes have got a hundred this year, seven different blokes have got five-fers. That’s magic, mate,” beamed Franks.

“You know when you’ve got a good group of players and you hope it genuinely starts to come together… you start playing well, stuff starts to happen.

“And then stuff just… magic starts creeping in, the wickets we’ve taken, the partnerships we’ve had when we needed them.”

*******