County Championship, Division One – Fourth
Metro Bank Men’s 50-over Cup – Semi-final
Captain Haseeb Hameed
Vitality Blast T20 Men’s – Semi-final
Captain Joe Clarke
Vitality Blast T20 Women’s – Winners
Metro Bank Women’s 50-over Cup – Winners
T20 Women’s County Cup – Winners
Captain Kirstie Gordon
The Hundred Men’s – Semi-final
Captain Sam Billings
The Hundred Women’s – Winners
Captain Ash Gardener
Against the backdrop of the re-development of the Pavilion at Trent Bridge, the re-development of the Nottinghamshire CCC ‘family’ took place in 2026.
With the Club now owning a majority stake in the Trent Rockets franchise and with The Blaze firmly established at Trent Bridge, there were eight titles or trophies up for grabs across all formats.
In the event, four trophies were won, three other semi-final places were contested and there was one fourth place – an enviable tally.
The major disappointment was the fading away of Nottinghamshire’s pursuit of a second successive Championship title. With five game to go they headed the table, albeit narrowly, but won just one of the last five games to slip to fourth.
Nottinghamshire
The defending champions opened the season with a run of six games undefeated – four draws and two wins.
Somerset, close rivals for the title, had the better of a high-scoring draw at Taunton with the two Toms, Abell and Kohler-Cadmore, and keeper James Rew each scoring hundreds.
At home to newly-promoted Glamorgan, Notts produced two centurions – Jack Haynes and Joe Clarke – as they won by 192 runs. A remarkable feature of this match was the dismissal of Glamorgan’s Sean Dickson by Lyndon James (ct Brett Hutton) as both players were on as substitutes!
This was the first season in which the Championship rules were changed to allow a substitute to play a full part in the remainder of a match if a player retired injured or for a ‘significant life event’. Previously a sub could only field – other than keeping wicket – and not bat or bowl.
The eventual champions Warwickshire were the next visitors and with Ed Barnard contributing 165 to a first innings of 459, they enforced the follow-on when Notts were 279 all out.
A century from skipper Haseeb Hameed and keeper Kyle Verreynne (they each made 115) took Notts to 537-7 declared and a battling draw.
In the match at Leicester, it was the champions’ turn to enforce the follow-on; Notts made 490 all out (Ben Slater 178) and Leicestershire’s 308 meant they were asked to bat again. A second innings of 254 (Patterson-White 5-53) set Notts 77 to win which they got without losing a wicket.
A very high scoring draw saw the only double hundred for Nottinghamshire as Ben Duckett took the Surrey bowling for 203no.
A rare intervention from the weather meant that the game against Hampshire finished with yet another draw; Fergus O’Neill for Notts and Sonny Baker for Hampshire each took five wickets in an innings.
Jordan Hermann, with 106, and Craig Overton, 2-35 and 5-29, ensured that title contenders Somerset took the spoils at Trent Bridge, winning by 306 runs.
Liam Patterson-White, with nine wickets in the match, and Jack Haynes (137) made the crucial contributions to a comfortable win over Essex at Chelmsford by an innings and 52 runs.
By this stage (mid-June) the summer had developed into one of the longest and hottest on record but County cricket was taking its seasonal break to allow for The Hundred to get underway.
When Notts resumed, still at the top of the table, the first game back produced another good win, beating Surrey at The Oval. In 2025, a tight, tense game effectively sealed the title for Notts but in 2026, Surrey were well short of a challenge for the title.
Ollie Stone showed signs of his late season burst of form with ten wickets in the match – 6-44 and 4-50 – to ensure a win by 145 runs.
Ironically, given the record-breaking summer drought, the weather prevented Notts taking advantage of a substantial first innings lead over Warwickshire; Notts made 325-8 dec, Joe Clarke 150, and Warwickshire were all out 185 in the two days’ play that was possible.
Nottinghamshire expected to continue their success over Leicestershire but were held up by the most unlikely interventions. Josh Hull, sent as nightwatchman, confounded even himself by sticking around to fall for 97 – his highest career score and his only half-century.
Even then, Leicester were not finished; numbers ten and eleven, Tom Scriven and Josh Davey, put on 106 for the last wicket to help the visitors post 365 all out in reply to Nottinghamshire’s 451-8 (Haynes 159 and Patterson-White 111no).
Notts got back to winning ways against Hampshire, making 377 and 104 and bowling Hampshire out for 304 and 123 (Stone 6-28) to win by 54 runs.
At that point Notts, Somerset and Warwickshire were separated by just a few points and each had justifiable hopes of the title.
In the event, Notts lost both their last two games and the chance of back-to-back Championships (last done in the 1880s) was gone.
Sussex – themselves not entirely out of the title race – inflicted a seven-wicket defeat on the champions at Hove. Notts made 240 and 193, Sussex 358 and 76-3.
Results elsewhere put Warwickshire at the top of the table with a clear margin such that only a wide margin of victory over Yorkshire at Trent Bridge and the collapse of their rivals could see Notts triumph.
What followed was a tense affair in which the early Autumn ground and weather made for a bowler-dominated match. Notts batted first and made 251, scraping a single batting point on the second morning; skipper Hameed top scored with 71 made with great patience and concentration.
Yorkshire replied with 179 – Ollie Stone yet another five-wicket haul - and at the start of the third day Notts, with a first innings lead, seemed well set at 33-3. By lunchtime they were all out for just 85 – Jack White 5-23 and Ben Coad 4-27, leaving the visitors a target of 159.
The feeling around Trent Bridge was that Notts were perhaps twenty runs short but the match was still there to be won. Unfortunately, Stone was injured and unable to play so his place was taken by Tom Giles.
The Yorkshire second innings started briskly and the job seemed done when the opening partnership made 54; but wicket started to fall and when Ben Coad was caught (one of a record-equalling seven victims for Mitch Hay behind the stumps) off Patterson-White making it 139-8, hopes remained.
But Jonny Bairstow marshalled the last couple of batters and despite losing Ben Cliff on 153, struck a six to win the match by one wicket and condemn Notts to fourth place.
This was only the tenth loss by one wicket for Notts in their history and the first of the 21st century.
The patchy form across the season is reflected in the bating and bowling stats. Joe Clarke, with 1288 First-Class runs topped not just the Nottinghamshire list but the national table too; he made four centuries and finished with an average of exactly 56.00.
Of the other batters only the ever-reliable Jack Haynes, 975 runs at 46.42 and three tons, matched Clarke’s output. Liam Patterson-White made some valuable late order contributions, with one century, that 111 against Leicestershire, two more half centuries and an average of 24.94. Add his 16 catches and his bowling record and he can count as one of the great successes of the campaign.
The other significant success was Ollie Stone who topped fifty wickets in a season for the first time in his career – finishing with exactly 50 at 19.48. He was followed in the bowling table by Patterson-White who took 42 wickets at 25.11, making him the most successful spinner in Division One.
A combination of lost form, injuries and the increasing tendency towards short-term contracts meant that Notts fielded 23 different players during the Championship campaign and the inevitable disruption to team continuity may have contributed to the disappointment of their final position.
Notts Outlaws
The Outlaws had their best season in white ball cricket since 2020, reaching the semi-finals of the Metro Bank 50-over Cup and Finals Day of the T20 Vitality Blast.
In the Metro Bank competition, they opened their account with two wins at the Fretwell ground of Welbeck CC, beating Somerset by 4 wickets and Warwickshire by 3 wickets.
Half centuries from Freddie McCann and Haseeb Hameed ensured the win against Somerset and then McCann, again, and Kyle Verreynne contributed fifties to win over Warwickshire.
They continued the run of successful home games with a 5-wicket victory against Leicestershire at Trent Bridge.
A trip to the new ground at Farington, Lancashire, brought the first loss of the List-A season, the home team winning by 31 runs. Jack Blatherwick, who had moved to Lancs from Nottinghamshire, took 4-30.
Ben Martindale made his maiden First XI century against Kent at Beckenham but his 101 could not prevent the home chasing down 294 with four balls to go.
With pressure on the wickets at Trent Bridge, Notts Outlaws took a home game out of the county to the Queens Park ground in Chesterfield, the first time a team from Nottinghamshire has played there as the home side.
It proved a success with a 6 wicket win over Northamptonshire – McCann made 91, his highest to date in List-A matches.
A defeat followed at Cheltenham where Gloucestershire owed their 5 wicket win to 103 by opener, skipper and keeper James Bracey.
Scottish international George Munsey, signed for the white-ball tournaments, made 138 as The Outlaws eased home by 6 wickets against Surrey at The Oval.
They then travelled to York where a 159-run stand between Kyle Verreynne (105) and Jack Haynes (116no) ensured a 3-wicket victory and clinched a place in the semi-finals.
The semi-final opponents were Leicestershire – already beaten quite comfortably in the group stage – but their East Midlands rivals found form at the right time to win through to the final, ironically to be staged at Trent Bridge, by 23 runs.
In the Vitality Blast, Notts Outlaws started poorly, losing three games in a row, then went on a winning run – eight consecutive victories. A defeat to Yorkshire – who did the double over Notts – halted that run but a seven-run win against Surrey was enough to get The Outlaws into Finals Day at Edgbaston.
The semi-final opponents were Hampshire who batted first and racked up 187-3 in their 20 overs. The Outlaws were keeping up with the run rate until Joe Clarke was out for 64 in the twelfth over. Then the batting rather subsided, losing seven wickets for 68 runs and falling 27 runs short.
In the two white-ball competitions, Kyle Verreynne was the outstanding performer, taking the award for List-A Player of the Year with 591 runs at 84.42, one century and five scores over fifty, plus 12 catches and three stumpings.
The Blaze
In 2026, The Blaze – Nottinghamshire’s Women’s cricket squad – pulled off an unprecedented treble, winning all three of the competitions that they entered!
The Blaze went through the group stages of the Metro Bank 50-over tournament with just three defeats and went straight into the final, where they met Hampshire Women, one of the three sides to beat them earlier in the season.
A really tight and exciting final followed at Hampshire’s home ground, the Utilita Bowl in Southampton.
Hampshire were put in by The Blaze and started very quickly, reaching 84-1 in the eighteenth over; they were pegged back thereafter and closed their 50 overs on 251-9. Lucy Higham took 4-49 and Charley Phillips 3-38 to leave The Blaze with a very gettable target.
They also got a brisk start, Sarah Bryce and Tammy Beaumont adding 95 in seventeen overs for the first wicket. Despite 64 from Georgia Elwiss, the chase stuttered and The Blaze were seven down with two runs to win and one ball remaining. Emma Jones, 34no, swept a boundary to cue an outpouring of relief and celebration.
If this third trophy was hard won, the margins of victory in the two T20 competitions looked rather more comfortable.
In the Vitality Blast, The Blaze secured a place in Finals Day and in their semi-final met the host team, Surrey Women.
Charli Knott, 4-15, and Grace Ballinger 3-18, helped dismiss Surrey for just 105 and The Blaze strolled through to the final making 106-4 in sixteen overs.
The final was, if anything, an even more dominant performance. Durham Women batted first – The Blaze again opting to chase – and made 117-8 in their 20 overs. Bryce and Beaumont knocked off the 118 required without being parted, in just 13.2 overs.
The Vitality County Cup, also a 20-over competition saw The Blaze again qualify for finals day, on this occasion at Old Trafford in August.
Rain reduced the semi-final against Essex Women to a five over thrash which The Blaze won with 46-1 after Essex had made 44-3.
The final was also truncated but was at least over 13 overs per innings. Having (yet again) won the toss and elected to field, The Blaze held their opponents, Surrey Women, to 91-8, Kathryn Bryce taking 4-18.
She wasn’t done with Surrey even then and top-scored with 38no as The Blaze got home with 92-3 in twelve overs. (And Kathryn had a hand – literally – in the run out of Kira Chathli just to underline her vital contribution.
Trent Rockets
The Hundred competitions reflected the T20 games, with Trent Rockets men falling at the semi-final stage but the women’s side going on to win their tournament.
The Men’s team, with Ben Duckett opening and Mohammad Aamer, who was contracted to The Outlaws in the Vitality Blast, as the ‘local’ representatives, met Manchester Super Giants in the semi-final at Lord’s. The Rockets made 158-8 from their 100 balls; the Super Giants, led by 72 from New Zealand international Tim Seifert, made 162-5 with two balls to spare.
The Rockets Women’s side qualified for the final direct and met the winners of an eliminator match between SunRisers Leeds and Southern Brave.
In a curiously symmetrical game, Rockets won the toss and asked SunRisers to bat first. They made 91 all out from 91 balls, leaving Rockets to made 92 (just as The Blaze had been set in their final).
Sophia Dunkley and Beth Mooney hade 69 from 40 balls and Mooney stayed on to be 31no as The Rockets reached 92-2 from just 54 balls.
International Cricket
Trent Bridge hoisted the third test of a short New Zealand tour, a match won by the tourists but which will be remembered for the off-field dramas when England captain Ben Stokes announced – whilst the third day’s play was still on-going, that he was standing down from the captaincy and from the England squad at the end of the game.
In the T20I against India, England had a surprising comfortable win. England batted first and led by 70 from Phil Salt, posted 201-7 in their 20 overs. Jofra Archer 3-29 and Trent Bridge favourite Josh Tongue 4-28, were too good for a relatively inexperienced India side, bowled out for just 76 in 11.4 overs.
Away from matters on the field, the primary interest in 2026 was the progress of the Pavilion re-development; a major step was that from the Test Match, members were able to make use of the new, and extra comfortable, seating in front of the Long Room. The completion of the re-fit is keenly awaited.
Roger Marshall, known as ‘The Duke’ by Notts players, announced his retirement as the club’s scorer at the end of the season. He will be much missed – though no doubt he will be a regular spectator and carries the warm wishes of the Club and its members.
September 2026
Scorecards and stats can be seen here