Derbyshire v Essex day 4

221 ahead, 96 overs left in the game.

What's going to happen today?

For me, the main thing is that I hope Derbyshire don't do what has been a rarity this summer and capitulate. One of the reasons for our success has been the battling qualities of the side, especially with the bat. We have often displayed frailties against the turning ball (games at old-style Northampton, any game against Robert Croft) and will have to show those fighting qualities against Danish Kaneria today.

There's still help for the seamers too and our first task today is to bat through till lunchtime at least when there'll be around 64 overs of the game left.

We would then be around 300 ahead. As I said yesterday, I hope we don't feel we have to set a fair target as that would undo the work thus far in the game. Anything over 300 will take some getting, as Graham Wagg looked threatening with his slow left arm yesterday, but we need to bat well this morning to get that far then have a look at it. For me, 350 from 60 overs would be a good challenge for them, but we'll not score that quickly. However, they're going to go for whatever we set. If we win, we finish third, if we don't its sixth place which wouldn't be a fair placing for the way we've played this year.

I hope Garry Park gets the 19 runs required for his thousand and the ex-Durham man has been a fine signing. It was a shame yesterday that Wayne Madsen ended his astonishing debut season with a duck, while Chris Rogers finished with 39 runs short of 1500 (having missed the start of the season) and an average of 73.05, only exceeded by Simon Katich.

A good day in store. More later!