Nottinghamshire have suffered a setback with the news that seamer Jake Ball will be occupying the sidelines for six weeks after breaking a bone in his foot.
The 23-year-old sustained the injury during this week's LV= County Championship Division One encounter against Somerset at Taunton, pulling up whilst running into bowl during the hosts' first innings.
With the Outlaws starting their NatWest T20 Blast campaign against Lancashire Lightning at Trent Bridge on Friday week, Ball's absence is a blow to director of cricket Mick Newell's plans for the eagerly-anticipated competition.
“Losing Jake at this stage of the season is going to leave a hole in our Twenty20 plans because he would have featured heavily,” said Newell.
“I’m disappointed for him and I’ve got some planning to do to mitigate his absence.”
Newell has seamers Andy Carter, Harry Gurney and Ajmal Shahzad available but, with Australian Peter Siddle not registered for the sprint format and Andre Adams and Luke Fletcher primarily used in first-class cricket, Newell may look into the possibility of recruiting an overseas player to fill the void left by Ball.
Newell, who also has the option of promoting Paul Franks, Brett Hutton and Luke Wood from the second XI, added: “First and foremost we’ll look within the squad to see what our options are because we are getting very close to the opening match.
“Luke and Andre haven’t played much T20 recently and Peter is here to play four-day cricket so we need to make a plan.”