The end of the 2024 season see’s the end of a Berkshire career that quite frankly will never be beaten. As Tom Nugent calls time on his Stags career we look back at his remarkable time with the Royal county through the eyes of Head coach Tom Lambert.
Where can I start when sitting down to write a review of the career of Tom Nugent? What Nuge has given myself, his team mates and Berkshire Cricket is difficult to capture in words. So let’s start with the facts and let them sink in.
Nuge took 265 wickets in 13 seasons for Berkshire across three tournaments. Within that tally of wickets he took 14 five wicket hauls. In total he won 17 titles, the Western division on five occasions (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022), the NCCA outright championship on 5 occasions (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022), the NCCA Trophy on 6 occasions (2013, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023) and the NCCA T20 Trophy (2018) on one occasion. He won the double in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022. He remarkably played in 12 finals and never ended on the losing side. In a statistical sport that is cricket, Nuge’s numbers have never and will never be beaten in the modern era of National Counties Cricket.
It’s also a case of what might not have been! An Oratory School pupil who grew up in the Oxfordshire system, Nuge’s journey to becoming a Stag may have never got off the ground as he qualified to play for our local rivals. I’m therefore particularly glad my Berkshire and Henley captain at the time, Bjorn Mordt decided to pick him in 2012 as my replacement having retired the previous summer. The rest, as they say, is history, the baton was passed, a baton Nuge would go on to carry with more quality and prestige than I ever did. A fact we continually discussed as the seasons went by and I watched him tick off every statistic I once held dear at a rate far quicker than myself. He took great pleasure in letting me know. I took great pleasure in watching it.
He’ll certainly be viewed as the outstanding red ball bowler of the last 12 years, who with a Dukes ball in his hand terrorised opponents with good pace and away movement that always kept the likes of Mordt, Morris, Peploe, Davison, Lincoln and Woods consistently in the game. Indeed his 175 championship wickets at just 19.23 with 13 five wicket hauls accounting for over 25% of our wickets in that period pays testament to how good he was with the trusty red pill in his hand.
To my memory I never remember him being injured or missing a game because his body had let him down. Don’t get me wrong he let me know it hurt but never missed games which was testament to how well he looked after himself. In my eyes his two outstanding red ball performances came away to Cheshire in the 2018 championship year and in the 2022 championship final at West Bromwich Vs Lincolnshire. At Chester Boughton Hall in 2018 we had surrendered a 100 run deficit on first innings to Cheshire and were in a position perilously close to losing our 2017 title to our opponents. Less than a session later Nuge had returned figures of 7-38 to bundle our opposition out for just 99 setting ourselves a target of 208 which we went on to achieve on our way to winning the 2018 championship. He was unplayable that day.
In the 2022 final in West Bromwich in a game that was destined to be shortened by the weather, having won the toss we bowled on a September morning that had Nuge written all over it. 6-66 later and the damage had been done to take us to our 5th title in six years. Nuge made that happen as he always did.
I think it would be fair to say Nuge was less confident with a white tiflex in his hand but no less successful. His role was always a simple one and most often executed. Imagine it’s red mate and bowl straight through!
Wormsley was his back garden and always bought out the best in him. In seven successive seasons he led our attacks in white ball finals at the iconic ground and as previously stated he won them all. So many memories of those days include Nuge. So many of the victories were because of him. In 2013 in our first final against Shropshire he took a catch that stunned the on looking crowd that broke a partnership that ultimately won us that game. In the 2019 final with Cumbria he had the task of defending just 6 off the last over of the final as we battled to defend just 144. He went for just 4! In 2021 himself and Andy Rishton bowled a devastating opening spell of 6-35 between them as they blew away Cumbria taking us to our 4th title in 4 years. In 2023 again against Cumbria we struggled all innings to post a target we might be able to defend. The last 3 balls of the innings he deposited over deep midwicket to take 18 off the last three balls. We went on to win that contest by 25 runs defending just 195.
He was the man for the big occasion and did it with ball in hand, bat in hand and in the field. Probably my biggest regret as coach is that we couldn’t get him back to Wormsley this year for one last game. It’s where he deserved to end his career. It wasn’t to be and for that I’m sorry Nuge.
He received a first class honours degree in chemical engineering at Loughborough university and that put him on an intellectual plain I couldn’t match and never tried to. He thought about things, often too much in the early days and I enjoyed the task of keeping things simple with him, got him to not waste his brain on cricket and it’s intricacies. A well timed bum tap and a hair ruffle were all the great man needed. If he tried to get technical I called him a geek and walked off. Thankfully it worked! He batted in glasses and that made all of us happy. Many won’t know but he is partially sighted in one eye so how he took the catches he did is beyond me. Rarely if ever did he drop a thing.
It delighted me to see him win the Home Counties Premier League with Henley as captain this summer. They are so lucky to have him for the remainder of his cricketing life. I’ll say it as I always do Nuge, the door is never shut, I respect the decision you’ve made but if you ever miss us, you know where we are. I wish you and Imogen luck for the future mate and want to thank you for all you did for Berkshire cricket. In modern times Berkshire Cricket has a pedestal we’ve earned the right for people to put us on. On top of that Pedestal from an individual’s perspective for many, quite rightly, is Chris Peploe. In my eyes he’s got someone stood next to him up there now and that’s you. No bigger a compliment can I pay you and you know what that means.
Capped in 2015 as the 118th player to wear our famous baggy, I wish you the happiest of National Counties retirements. Thanks Nugglington x
Lambo.