Likeable Notts have bowling to find for title challenge

Last season
County Championship: 4th Div 1; NatWest Blast: quarter-finals; Royal London Cup: semi-final

IN: Will Gidman (Gloucestershire), Greg Smith (Leicestershire)
OUT: Phil Jaques (retired), Andre Adams (Hampshire), Ajmal Shahzad (Sussex)
OVERSEAS: Vernon Philander, Ben Hilfenhaus, Darren Sammy

2014 in a nutshell
Considering their reputation as one of the most powerful counties in the land, 2014 was a disappointment for Nottinghamshire. Fourth place in the Championship sounds respectable enough, but the manner of their defeat in the final match at Trent Bridge, as Yorkshire trounced them to win the title, emphasized the gulf that remained between themselves and the top sides. Their failure to maintain a Championship challenge was primarily due to an inability to bowl sides out twice - that, too, in the micro climate of Trent Bridge which assists seam and swing bowlers like no other venue. Notts were strongly fancied in the NatWest Blast, with good reason, only for defeat against Hampshire at Trent Bridge to extend their run of successive quarter-final reverses to four.

2015 prospects
Notts' ambition has been clear in a winter of sizeable recruitment. Vernon Philander and Ben Hilfenhaus are two international bowlers who can be expected to beef up their pace bowling ranks, and looking closer to home they would benefit considerably if Andy Carter could have an injury-free season. Will Gidman can also help to cover for the departure of Andre Adams. Brendan Taylor has swopped Zimbabwe for a Kolpak deal and adds to huge competition for places in the middle order. More problematic are the injuries to Jake Libby and Michael Lumb which will see both absent in early season and ensure traditional Notts uncertainty at the top of the order. Steven Mullaney and Greg Smith - another recruit, this time from Leicestershire - will vie for the job, presumably alongside Alex Hales, who missed out on an IPL deal. Notts' lack of a specialist spinner remains a frailty, but surely they have the talent to end that T20 quarter-final hoodoo.

Power brokers
Mick Newell, who now combines his role as Notts director of cricket with that as an England selector, will be anxious to bring some silverware to Trent Bridge as well as banishing Notts' reputation as a buying club: his call for regional academies (with Notts to the fore obviously) will not have gone down overly well with fans at neighbouring Derbyshire and Leicestershire. Chris Read's firefighting with the bat as Notts' Championship catch-up is forever watchable, and James Taylor can advance his claims as one of the most astute leaders of the game in the limited-overs formats - when not on England duty.

Key player
For Gloucestershire to lose both Gidman brothers at the same time was a sizeable blow - and one of them - Will, three years younger than Alex, at 30, and slightly less celebrated - has made his way to Trent Bridge. Will Gidman has been a late developer, his medium-paced bowling developing such a threat that, at a relatively late stage of his career, he boasts the unusual record of 194 wickets at 22 apiece. Trent Bridge would seem ideally suited to him - an ideal replacement perhaps for Adams - but it remains to be seen whether he can workover Division One batsmen in quite the same manner.

Bright young thing
Jake Libby had Championship purists purring when he made a carefully-assembled hundred on Championship debut against Sussex at Trent Bridge as the 2014 season drew to a close. His unflappable temperament and decent technique against a Sussex attack pushing for a third-placed finish brought hopes that the young Cornishman would become the reliable opening batsman Notts need. A ruptured cruciate ligament playing grade cricket in Tasmania was a cruel blow, but he will hope for opportunities to restate his qualities in the final two months of the Championship season.

ESPNcricinfo verdict
There is so much to like about Notts. Trent Bridge is the model of how cricket in England should be and the ability to create a pleasurable viewing experience, allied to an entertaining side, made them one of the places to watch T20 cricket in 2014. To falter at the quarter-finals for the fourth successive summer, though, was a desperate disappointment for a side packed with destructive batsmen, but often a little lacking with the ball. Oh, for a young Harold Larwood to pop into an Academy session. For that reason, unless the Philander/Hilfenhaus combo has a dramatic effect and Gidman chips in, they may fade yet again in the title race.

Bet365 odds: Championship Div 1: 5-1; NatWest Blast: 6-1; Royal London Cup: 7-1