Only 10 minutes after Derbyshire received notice on Tuesday of an unprecedented decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board's registration committee to place a two-week embargo on his transfer to any other county, they were informed by Nottinghamshire of their intention to approach the 27-year-old batsman.

Alan Wheelhouse, the respected lawyer and former Cambridge Blue who is chairman both of Nottinghamshire and of the registration standing committee at Lord's, was thus placed by his own county in a potentially invidious position, but before anyone could mention it yesterday Mark Arthur, the county's chief executive, pointed out that his chairman had not been aware that an approach would be made for Adams.

He said: ``The decision had been taken by myself, our cricket manager Alan Ormrod, the chairman of finance Peter Wright and the cricket chairman Stuart Foster that if Chris were to be switched to list two, we would talk to him about the possibility of joining us.

``Jason Gallian is our choice from list one. He is in the West Indies at present considering our offer.''

The registration committee decided to switch Adams from list one - players whose move is contested by their former county - to list two, and Arthur acted immed- iately to confirm Nottinghamshire's interest to Derbyshire. Nottinghamshire officials will talk to Adams and his agent next week.

Arthur said: ``We would not be able to match the offer reported to be made by Sussex, but we are a regional centre of excellence and he lives only 20 minutes from Trent Bridge. It would be much less of an upheaval for him.''

Derbyshire chairman Vic Brownett said that his county had been advised by the ECB to put Adams on list one. ``I have no quibble with Chris,'' he said yesterday, ``but I can't see that what's happened is good for cricket.

``It is like licensing any player who thinks he can get a better deal elsewhere to disrupt things by complaining until he gets his way.''

Adams had been wanting to move for two seasons and still had a year of his contract to run when the county decided to release him.