MILESTONES AND MEMORIES
Andre Adams - 50th and Title Triumph
There are two good reasons for Notts fans to celebrate all-rounder Andre Adams in 2025 – his fiftieth birthday and his part in securing the Club’s most recent County Championship.
Adams was born 50 years ago today (17 July) in Auckland, New Zealand, to a mother from Guyana and a father from St Vincent and was an established international player when he signed for Notts at the start of the 2007 season. A veteran of 42 one-day internationals for New Zealand, his sole Test appearance was against England at Eden Park in April 2002 in which he took six wickets, including those of Michael Vaughan, Nasser Hussain and Andrew Flintoff.
Notts registered Adams as an overseas player for the 2007 season, during which he played four LV County Championship games, with a six-wicket haul against local rivals Derbyshire his best performance. He was awarded his Nottinghamshire County Cap in that first season.
Adams, a right arm fast-medium bowler with a clever mix of slower balls and cutters, was the club’s player of the year in 2010 and 2011 and leading wicket-taker in 2012. For Notts, he finished with 344 wickets at 24.18 in red ball cricket with a best return of 7-32.
He was a keen fielder, taking 56 catches, and if his batting figures are not quite all-rounder class, he contributed many useful runs, particularly in white ball cricket, with nine First-Class Fifties and a top score of 84, made against Yorkshire, from 1,894 runs at 18.38.
In 2010, the 68 Championship wickets that he took put him top of the table for dismissals but it was the last one of those 68 that really counted.
Although Notts were counted as one of the favourites to land the title that season, it was nip-and-tuck throughout and when the final round of fixtures started, they needed to match, or better, Somerset’s points tally to clinch the title.
Mick Newell, in his annual report, summed up the fluctuating fortunes of that final game, away to Lancashire at Old Trafford:
“When the third day of our climactic game against Lancashire at Old Trafford was written off our plan became clearer in our minds because the only options available to us were to try and set up a game or to chase the bonus points and rely on favourable results elsewhere.
“When the start of the fourth day was delayed we were down to 80 overs and I said that I didn’t believe we could do it with bonus points and at that point Chris Read went to speak to Glenn Chapple. Their offer wasn’t favourable and that made our minds up – we had to chase the bonus points.
“Samit has the ability to score quickly and his partnership with Adam Voges who went in at 79-2 and got us to 386 which is remarkable and although he was hard on himself for falling 14 runs short of our target, he made a major contribution to our success.
“Even at 390-9 needing 400, I was backing Darren (Pattinson) and Ryan (Sidebottom). I didn’t have a problem watching but others were hiding in the corridors of the Old Trafford pavilion.
“Having scored the runs on a flat pitch, I knew that Ryan and Andre would make things happen with the ball.
“Andre only bowled ten balls in that match but he found the spot straight away and of all the players, his desire to win the championship was perhaps higher than anyone else’s.”
The scorecard tells its own story – Notts took the three wickets they needed for the crucial bowling bonus point in just 4.4 overs and Andre Adams had taken 2-3, skipper Mark Chilton caught behind by Chris Read and the vital wicket of Shivnarine Chanderpaul caught by Samit Patel.
Mick Newell added: “I was half watching the game and half watching the television and only when Samit threw the ball away did I realise what had happened. I heard the screams and saw the lads setting off around the field so I ran out through the balcony door and joined in the celebrations.”
Andre Adams played for Notts until 2014 and signed a three-month contract with Hampshire for the beginning of the 2015 season but injuries limited him to only three First-Class appearances and he announced his retirement at age 39.
His contribution to the Club’s most recent Championship and that all-important final wicket will be long remembered and Notts’s fans and members will raise a glass to his 50th Birthday and his most important wicket.
July 2025