Having spent the past six weeks trawling the country for loan bowlers to answer a temporary injury crisis, Nottinghamshire last night arrived at a more exciting and longer-term solution. Stuart Broad, who is at present on NatWest duty for England, will join from Leicestershire next season.

He is the second generation of his family to leave for Trent Bridge, following Chris, his father, who left Gloucestershire in 1983. The switch proved so successful that within a year he was opening the batting for England. Now an ICC match referee, he lives less than a mile from the ground.

Despite playing down Nottinghamshire’s interest, Mick Newell, the director of cricket, was always quietly confident of acquiring the most exciting young fast bowler in the country. Broad, 21, had also interested Yorkshire, Warwickshire, Lancashire, Surrey and Hampshire, and received an improved offer from his present club.

Newell said: “If Stuart was already playing regularly for England, I would have thought more carefully about signing him, but I think that Peter Moores wants him to play more county cricket and develop his game. He is the best young prospect in this country and further down the line I am sure he will be a regular in the England team.”

In late May, with four of their first five matches won, Nottinghamshire were marching to promotion. Since then, it has been more like the retreat from Moscow: no further wins have come and a fast bowler has fallen almost weekly. Mark Davies, Kyle Hogg and Nadeem Malik have all arrived at some point on a temporary basis.

In his first match on loan from Durham, Davies returned the best figures of his career of seven for 59. Rob White and Andrew Crook, on his four-day county debut, charged to 146 for one but Davies removed White for 71 and, after Crook went, undid Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje to send them crashing to 160 for five.

A later revival was halted when he unseated the last three batsmen with the new ball. With good weather, they can enhance their prospects of a top-two finish; otherwise Broad will find himself, as now, playing in the second division in between England commitments in 2008.