How to make a poll redundant

I think we can safely say that there's been a few changes in the voting of the latest poll since Charl Langeveldt's injury ruled him out of the season.

I understand from e mails that a few people have been muttering about there being something more to it than an injury. Heaven save us from cricket going down the same path as football, where everyone knows someone whose brother used to go out with the woman who used to clean the toilets at Pride Park and met the chairman's window cleaner...

It is human nature to want to find something more than just the obvious in a situation and there are always imaginations going into overdrive in all circumstances. If John Morris says Langeveldt has a shoulder injury and is out for the season we should take it as the truth, rather than demanding to see photographs of him during his operation. If I had a fiver for every time someone had told me that Derbyshire players had come to blows in the past I would be a rich man and they'd all have been sporting black eyes.

It was interesting to see John Morris talk about scouring the world for a replacement this morning. If he comes up with someone who is available and satisfies the regulations he will do very well. One option until the winter just past may have been young Aussie Moises Henriques, who would have qualified under a Portuguese passport except for making his one day bow recently. He has played in the IPL more recently (without a great deal of success) but is an all rounder of potential. I'm not sure if Morris would consider moving for Michael Dighton as a good one day batsman and medium pace bowler, but I don't think Dighton would necessarily improve the team.

More likely is a move for a surplus seamer from another county, especially if we lose any more bowlers. One option may be Steffan Jones, who, as I wrote last week, has enjoyed a miserable time at Somerset since leaving Derbyshire and may welcome a return to the county in a short or medium term capacity. He may be nearer his wife's family at Taunton but he's nowhere near the first team and the genial Welshman must have regrets at leaving the bowler-encouraging tracks at Derby for the batsman's fantasy of his new home.

I know that if a replacement is out there John Morris is a man likely to come up with the goods. On the back of his signings thus far I'd say he has an excellent contacts book and he may well need that to pull something out of the fire here.

Finally, the Derby Telegraph this morning shows Stuart Law with the new Mongoose cricket bat, a shortened version of a regular bat that satisfies regulations and that he intends to use in the 20/20. Law says that it gives a ball awesome power (assuming you hit it...) and the ball goes a long way. Poor bowlers. Another innovation in the game that makes their work even harder. Maybe we should allow them to use a variant on the old plastic wind balls that were used for indoor hockey with kids. Have you ever seen them used in indoor cricket? When I used to coach a school team we used to take one of these plastic balls with holes in them and tape up one side. The result was a ball, depending on how you held it, that would swing like an Ian Buxton special into or away from the batsman. Great for teaching the rudiments of swing and how to play it. The new bats sound interesting but in the hands of lesser mortals I suspect that a good yorker might be the ball to bowl.

Anyway, the carnival is almost upon us. Am I looking forward to the 20/20? No, I'm not a fan. Do I think we'll do well? No, without Langeveldt we look light in bowling and we'll have to bat much better than we normally do to win matches. I'll be delighted to be proved wrong but I suspect that the 20/20 isn't going to be a barrel load of laughs for Derbyshire fans. Roll on the return of the proper stuff.