The 2025 English county cricket season begins on 4 April when 18 counties will play across Divisions One and Two of the Rothesay County Championship.

Nottinghamshire were disappointing last year and struggled particularly in first-class and T20 matches.

Head coach Peter Moores has recruited several overseas players to improve the side’s performances and will hope for more consistency in 2025.

Notts will join Yorkshire, Sussex and seven other counties in Division One, and you can read all of our Division Two previews here.

2024 season

Nottinghamshire had a tough season in 2024 as they barely survived in Division One and failed to qualify for the knockout rounds of either white-ball competition.

They only won two first-class games all year and went seven matches without a victory during the middle of the season.

Eight draws and four defeats left them in eighth position in the table, only 21 points ahead of relegated Lancashire.

In Group B of the Metro Bank One Day Cup, they fell three points short of qualification for the quarter-finals after winning four and losing four games.

Seven-wicket defeats to Gloucestershire and Essex in their final three games killed their hopes of progression despite beating third-placed Warwickshire in their final match.

They performed even worse in the Vitality Blast and won fewer games than every other team apart from Middlesex.

Three wins, nine defeats and two abandonments left them with just eight points from 14 games, seven too few to qualify for the knockout stages.

Their chances of qualification were all but over after losing their first five games of the campaign.

Despite a poor season, club captain Haseeb Hameed excelled in the Championship with 1,091 runs at an average of 51.95.

Only three players in Division One scored more runs than the 28-year-old, who scored a career-best 247* against his former club Lancashire in May.

Ben Slater and Joe Clarke also impressed with over 900 runs in 14 games.

Fast bowler Dillon Pennington was the county’s leading wicket-taker with the red ball. His 31 wickets at an average of 23.80 came in just eight matches.

Slater was in the top 10 run-scorers in the One Day Cup with 398 runs at 56.85 and he also scored two centuries. Hameed also scored over 300 runs and hit two hundreds.

23-year-old Rob Lord was the best of a poor bowling attack as he took 11 wickets at 22.63 in his debut professional season. His maiden five-wicket haul came against Surrey, who he took 5/45 against.

All of the Outlaws’ batters struggled in the Blast as Jack Haynes’ 229 runs at 17.61 were the most for the county.

Only two other batters scored more than 150 runs – Tom Moores and Matthew Montgomery.

England’s Olly Stone led the way with the ball with 15 wickets at 27.86, seven more than second-best Ben Lister.

Squad

Peter Moores will take charge of Nottinghamshire for the ninth season since joining in 2016.

The former England coach has won the T20 Blast twice, the One Day Cup once and the 2022 Division Two in his time in the East Midlands.

His assistant Paul Franks will take over the 50-over side.

Haseeb Hameed will continue as club captain after succeeding Steven Mullaney at the end of the 2023 season.

The 10-time Test cricketer moved to Trent Bridge in 2020 after a hard time at Lancashire and has returned to his position as one of the best openers in the county game.

He is nearing 4,000 first-class runs for Notts and has also become one of their most important 50-over players.

Wicketkeeper-batter Joe Clarke will lead the T20 side for the second season. The 28-year-old joined the county before the 2019 season and is the club’s fourth-highest run-scorer in T20 cricket with 2,070 runs.

Five overseas players will take part in the county’s season: Kyle Verreynne, Fergus O’Neill, Daniel Sams, Mohammad Abbas and Moises Henriques.

South African wicketkeeper Verreynne had a short spell with the county last season and is expected to be available for 12 of their 14 Championship games this year.

He will be joined at the start of the season by Australian fast bowler O’Neill, who will play in the first four games of the campaign.

Fellow Aussies Sams and Henriques will both arrive for the T20 Blast and are very experienced on the T20 franchise circuit.

Pakistan fast bowler Abbas has spent the past four seasons with Hampshire but will now turn out for Notts, five years after his first spell was cancelled due to Covid.

The 35-year-old will replace O’Neill in May and then return in September, playing six games in total.

Former Surrey fast bowler Conor McKerr has signed a three-year deal after struggling for game time with the Division One champions.

The 27-year-old had seven loan spells during his time at the Oval, including four games with Notts in the 2023 T20 campaign. He has taken 139 wickets in 76 games across all formats since his debut in 2017.

Other signings are young trio Travis Holland, Sam Seecharan and Tom Giles, who have all signed two-year deals.

Holland and Seecharan have both starred with the bat in the academy, whilst fast bowler Giles has played for England youth teams and made his Second XI debut aged 16 against a Yorkshire side containing Jonny Bairstow.

Several players have had confirmed departures from the county, including overseas players Dane Paterson, Jacob Duffy, Ben Lister, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Will Young.

Seamer Luke Fletcher has left the club after 17 seasons at Trent Bridge, in which he took over 600 wickets and won five trophies.

26-year-olds Tom Loten and Toby Pettman have both retired after struggling for first-team appearances. The former signed from Yorkshire in 2022 and took 10 wickets in eight List A games, while Pettman claimed 53 wickets and had loan spells at Derbyshire and Kent.

Young spinner Fateh Singh has moved to Worcestershire until the end of the 2027 season.

The 20-year-old made his 50-over debut for Notts aged 17 but failed to claim a regular spot in the county’s eleven and will rejoin the Pears after spending the whole One Day Cup campaign with them last season and being their leading wicket-taker in the competition.

Veteran batter Alex Hales will not play for the county this season after opting to take part in the Major League Cricket and Caribbean Premier League competitions.

The 36-year-old made his debut in 2008 and played 356 matches across all formats, scoring 13,938 runs, but may not play for the club again.

Four Nottinghamshire players will take part in The Hundred this summer: Ben Duckett, Joe Clarke (both Birmingham Phoenix), Josh Tongue (Manchester Originals) and Calvin Harrison (Trent Rockets).

Full squad (as of 28/03/25):

Batters – Ben Duckett, Haseeb Hameed (CC and OD captain), Jack Haynes, Travis Holland, Ben Martindale, Freddie McCann, Matthew Montgomery, Sam Seecharan

All-rounders – Calvin Harrison, Moises Henriques (O), Lyndon James, Sam King, Liam Patterson-White, Daniel Sams (O)

Wicketkeepers – Joe Clarke (T20 captain), Tom Moores, Dane Schadendorf, Kyle Verreynne (O)

Fast bowlers – Mohammad Abbas (O), Tom Giles, James Hayes, Brett Hutton, Rob Lord, Conor McKerr, Fergus O’Neill (O), Dillon Pennington, Olly Stone, Josh Tongue

Spinners – Farhan Ahmed

Overseas Players

Four of Nottinghamshire’s five overseas players have international experience, with Fergus O’Neill being the only one who does not.

However, the Victoria fast bowler has an excellent first-class record with 112 wickets at 20.42.

The 24-year-old also averages 20.79 with the bat and has a high score of 70*.

He has played in the Big Bash League (BBL) and also dismissed Australian Test cricketers Travis Head and Alex Carey in the Sheffield Shield.

Fellow Aussies Moises Henriques and Daniel Sams are much more experienced and have also had previous county stints.

Henriques, who was born on the Portuguese island of Madeira, made 44 international appearances between 2009 and 2021.

The all-rounder has scored almost 16,000 career runs and taken over 300 wickets since his debut for New South Wales in January 2006 and has played for Glamorgan and Surrey, as well as five Indian Premier League (IPL) sides.

The 38-year-old has won the BBL three times with Sydney Sixes, in which he was captain twice.

Bowling all-rounder Sams has played for Essex in the last three Blast seasons and has played for the Trent Rockets in two editions of The Hundred.

The left-arm seamer has taken 218 T20 wickets at less than 25, has a high score of 98* with the bat and has played franchise cricket in India, Pakistan, USA, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

Wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne averaged 248 in three Championship games for Notts last season, which included 148* against Warwickshire.

The 27-year-old has played 24 Tests and 19 ODIs for South Africa, scoring over 1,500 runs and hitting four centuries with the red ball.

In 92 first-class games, he averages 49.53 with 13 hundreds.

The final overseas player, Mohammad Abbas, has played a lot of county and international cricket.

In 27 Test matches for Pakistan, he has taken 100 wickets at 23.18 with an economy of just 2.50.

In his four years with Hampshire, he was one of the most outstanding bowlers in county cricket, taking 180 wickets at 19.26

Key Player

Haseeb Hameed was the county’s leading scorer in last year’s Championship and will need to have an equally good season this year to ensure his side do not face relegation.

With Ben Duckett now a regular across all three formats for England, he will be unavailable for most of the summer so Hameed will be Notts’ most important batter at the top of the order.

He will be helped by Ben Slater, Joe Clarke and Kyle Verreyne but, as the leader of the side, he will set the example.

If he can match his 1,091 runs from last season, he will again be near the top of the run charts in the division and may give the county a chance of finishing in the top three.

One to look out for

While his older brother has already impressed on the international stage, 17-year-old Farhan Ahmed may exceed his potential in years to come.

Despite Rehan playing for Leicestershire, Farhan came through Notts’ academy and made his second XI debut aged just 14 in 2022.

He made his List A debut last July aged 16 years and 153 days, becoming the county’s second-youngest-ever player behind Paul Johnson, who made his debut 32 days younger in 1981.

Ahmed went on to play five Division One matches at the end of the season, taking 25 wickets at 23.92.

On his first-class debut against champions Surrey, he took first-innings figures of 7/140 and 10/217 in the match, becoming the youngest player in County Championship history to take a five-for and ten-for.

The previous record holder for the latter was legendary all-rounder W.G. Grace, who set the record in 1865 and scored over 50,000 runs and took 2,800 wickets in a 44-year first-class career.

Ahmed also win the county’s emerging player of the season award alongside Freddie McCann.

Even if he fails to retain a regular place in Nottinghamshire’s red-ball side this season, he could still make his T20 debut and will almost certainly be a starter in the One Day Cup.

The teenager is undoubtedly one of the most promising players in English cricket and it may not be long until he makes his international debut.

Prediction

Peter Moores has recruited well in the off-season to improve Nottinghamshire’s standings across all formats.

Abbas and Verreynne will be leaders in the side with their Test experience and Fergus O’Neill has the potential to make a lasting impression in his short spell.

They would find it hard to match the levels of Surrey but they should not be looking to avoid relegation, as happened last season.

A top-half finish in Division One should be the aim for Notts.

In the One Day Cup, they will not be missing as many players as some other counties so should challenge for the quarter-finals in a campaign that will be useful to develop the most recent intake of young players.

After last season’s horror show in the T20 Blast, they will be desperate to improve and the smart signing of Henriques and Sams will bring a lot of experience to the side.

Although they may miss Alex Hales and be without Ben Duckett for some of the tournament, they will be in with a shout for the knockout rounds and will likely finish between fourth and sixth.

Nottinghamshire’s county season gets underway on Friday 4 April when they will face Durham at Trent Bridge.