Derbyshire v Kent day 1

First the bad news. We didn't take the initiative from Kent today after reducing them to 68-3. Geraint Jones saw to that, his increasing penchant for Derbyshire bowling getting slightly annoying now! After his second innings ton at Canterbury this was consecutive centuries against us and he's a fine player, having passed his 1,000 runs in the process.

Now the good news. We're still very much in this game and early wickets when we next get on the field could change things quickly. Note I didn't say "tomorrow" as the forecast suggests that there'll not be too much play. Let's hope it is wrong.

There was good bowling from Tom Lungley and superb bowling from Steffan Jones (yet again). The rest were a little more off kilter, with Graham Wagg understandably rusty after his lay off.

IF the rain allows the game to develop, having won the toss we can at least go for it on the final day. We'd not want to lose everything and draw points would ber better than nothing, but if Kent leave anything vaguely gettable I'm sure that we'll go for it. We have to, needing two wins from three to have even a chance of going up.

There'll be no blog from till later tomorrow as I've got an event on at work which will keep me busy till around 9.30pm. I'll try and dash down some thoughts later and hope its as little more than "it rained"...

I was amused today to reasd on teletext that "Loye leads Lancashire charge". When I put the page on they were 131-5. Does that constitute a charge? Wouldn't "Loye limps faster than the rest" been more appropriate? He got 58, but come on guys...

Last week's poll suggested that there's around 65% of people looking for a spinner over the winter. I think we should get our running shoes on, as there'll not be many of them out there. Given Batty's gone back to Surrey, the current choices are James Middlebrook and... er... James Middlebrook. Given Kolpaks are out and there's not much else out there, maybe Geoff Miller will be donning the whites again.

Anyway, here's a poll looking for your thoughts on the state of the club. Are we on the right track from a playing perspective? Or going over the cliff edge in slow motion?

I look forward to your thoughts on that one.