Good piece on 606

There's a nice piece on 606 earlier this week on Derbyshire's team of the decade. The poster, TGLM, suggested the following side for the period between 2000 and 2009

Michael Di Venuto
Steve Stubbings
Chris Bassano
Greg Smith
Ant Botha
Jamie Pipe
Graeme Welch
Graham Wagg
Steffan Jones
Charl Langeveldt
Kevin Dean

It is hard to argue with many of those choices, which leaves a side packed with quality seam bowling. What it highlights is that it was not a decade blessed with quality batsmen. There may be arguments for and against Chris Rogers v Michael di Venuto, but most of the others cannot be disputed. With Ant Botha at 5, however, I would be less confident of our posting totals on a regular basis, especially when for much of the period only Di Venuto could be called prolific.

Here's an interesting one for you. Compare that team with the one likely to take the field in the Championship in 2010:

Chris Rogers
Wayne Madsen
Garry Park
Greg Smith
Dan Redfern
Paul Borrington
Lee Goddard
Robin Peterson
Graham Wagg
Tim Groenewald
Steffan Jones

There's not that much between them and the current side is definitely the better balanced. Notwithstanding the presence of three inexperienced players in the middle order, the current side has great depth in batting and potentially eight bowlers. Of course, a composite side from the decade has some fine bowlers, but they never played together!

The close nature of the sides in strength suggests, given that the above side WILL probably take the field, that the team has come together well under John Morris. The last decade was far from a memorable one for Derbyshire fans, but the next one, looking at the potential in the above side, could be if they can be kept together.