Peter Moores simply can’t wait to take on Surrey as Nottinghamshire head to the Kia Oval for a crunch Championship clash from tomorrow.
Moores, into his ninth season in the job of Green and Gold head coach, leads his side to London just one point behind the Brown Caps, who have won the title in each of the past three seasons.
“We just always wanted to get to this point in the season, ahead of the game at the Oval, where it was close,” said Moores.
“We knew we had to do our bit in the game against Worcestershire and we couldn’t worry too much about them, but now we’ll go in there confident.
“We’d have gone in there confident anyway, we’re playing good cricket and have done for a long time now and we have a lot of people playing very well.”
The 62-year-old is further thrilled by the prospect of taking on Surrey at their home, one of the grand old cathedrals of English cricket.
“I’m really looking forward to that game. The Oval is a great place to play with a really good cricket pitch, and you have to play well,” he said.
“But, we are playing well, so I think it will be a really good contest!”
Moores also reserved specific praise for the frequent contributions made by multiple members of the team across the season thus far.
In his view, the team effort that has led up to this seminal showdown is the driving factor behind why Nottinghamshire find themselves in the position they do.
“The story of the season is that contributions have come from lots of different places,” said Moores. “It’s not been just one person, instead, everyone has chipped in.
“The way Lyndon played at the end in Worcestershire, and Josh Tongue too; that probably summed his game up really where he had an impact at different points in the match.
“We’ll look back at those little incidents during that game, for example the great fielding by Haseeb Hameed, the catch by Freddie McCann, which were all significant.
“I think that match said a lot about where the team is at, but more importantly, there were moments in the match that tell you where this team is at.”
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