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Atherton slams Notts’ ‘really poor’ record of producing homegrown players

by Wisden Staff 3 minute read

Former England captain Michael Atherton has criticised Nottinghamshire for their apparent failure to produce homegrown talent.

Speaking on Sky Sports Cricket prior to Notts’ T20 Blast semi-final clash against Lancashire, Atherton described the Trent Bridge side’s recent record of producing local talent as “really poor”. Five of the 11 Notts players – Alex Hales, Matt Carter, Samit Patel, Tom Moores and Jake Ball – in their line-up for the semi-final came through the county’s youth system.

Of the other six players in the XI, Chris Nash was brought to the county from Sussex in 2018, Ben Duckett and Joe Clarke were signed ahead of the 2019 summer from Northamptonshire and Worcestershire respectively, Steven Mullaney joined from Lancashire in 2009 while Imad Wasim and Dan Christian are Notts’ two overseas players.

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Haseeb Hameed, Ben Slater, and Zak Chappell are notable recent red-ball imports.

“It’s an imported side, I have to say,” said Atherton. “For a big club, they are very poor at producing their own players. They have to get players in from everywhere, they’ve got two overseas players out tonight and what you see with Lancashire is a more homegrown team.

“I think it’s really poor actually. For Notts, who are such a massive club…if huge clubs like Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Surrey can’t produce their own players, I think that’s a real issue.”

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