Guest column: What a great year for our cricketers

The club achieved a historic hat-trick of successes, starting with the 50-over Royal London One-Day Cup where they beat Surrey at Lord’s in July, and the NatWest T20 Blast in September, beating Birmingham Bears in the final at Edgbaston.

The team also won promotion to Division One of the County Championship at the first attempt after finishing second in Division Two.

To help recognise these fantastic achievements, we recently jointly hosted a civic reception with the club to help celebrate this remarkable season.

I was particularly delighted that this event paid tribute to everyone connected with this club, full of talented players and coaching staff.

Both the team itself and the world-renowned Trent Bridge ground are a great asset and certainly enhance Nottinghamshire’s reputation as a sporting county.

Bassetlaw, of course, is home to one of the best grassroots competitions in the region – the renowned Bassetlaw & District Cricket League – and it was great that so many representatives from local cricket clubs across the county were able to come along to the event.

On the road to Nottinghamshire’s Royal London One-Day Cup success was a home victory at Trent Bridge’s sister venue, the Welbeck Colliery Cricket Club in Market Warsop.

It’s also where county and England bowler Jake Ball is from, earning him the nickname of the ‘Welbeck wizard’.

It was great news that Jake was given his Ashes debut last week, joining Nottinghamshire team mate Stuart Broad in the England line-up.

Let’s hope they can help the team deliver a better result in the second Test.

We are very proud with our links with the cricket club, and look forward to next season, particularly with the team being back where they belong in top flight cricket.

With the fixture release for the new season taking place this week, I am sure that many people from the north of the county will already be planning their trips down to Trent Bridge next summer.

Nottinghamshire will also be welcoming visitors from much further-afield of course as cricket fans from across the country and overseas descend on Nottinghamshire when Trent Bridge plays host to international one-day and test matches next summer.