Outlaws playing for T20 'pride' - Stone

Olly Stone joined Nottinghamshire from Warwickshire in 2023

Paceman Olly Stone says Notts Outlaws will be playing for "pride" in the remaining two group games of their disastrous T20 Blast campaign.

Sunday's five-wicket defeat by Leicestershire leaves Notts bottom of the Northern Group with just two wins.

Notts have only ever finished bottom of a T20 group once before - in 2005.

"It hurts a lot and the boys are disappointed," Stone told BBC Radio Nottingham.

"We are working hard to turn it around and we have two big games coming up for a lot of self pride and to show our fans how good we can be."

Notts have won just two of their 12 games in the competition so far this season.

It has been almost two decades since the Outlaws have won only two matches in the competition, doing so in both 2005 and 2004 when there were significantly fewer group games.

For Notts, the T20 campaign this year produced unwanted history when they managed a club record low total of 57 in their nine-wicket defeat by Birmingham Bears earlier in July.

That tally was the forth lowest produced by any county since T20 cricket became part of the domestic schedule in 2003.

Notts finish their campaign with two games on the road this week, with high-flying Lancashire hosting them on Wednesday (18:30 BST) before they travel to Headingley on Thursday (18:45) to take on a Yorkshire side in pursuit of a knockout spot.

"Hopefully, we can go to Old Trafford and Headingley to show everyone that we can go out and do it and go again for next year," Stone, 30, said.

"It's never nice losing and the boys are learning.

"It doesn’t just happen overnight, unfortunately, and we have shown in this competition that there have been glimpses of it - we just need to go away and put that all together for a 20-over performance rather than four or five overs at a time."