Surrey v Derbyshire day 4

Is there anything better than winning your first game of the season?

Well yes, actually. There's winning it in style, against the supposed best team in the division. There's winning it with your skipper scoring 340 runs for only once out. Oh, and there's winning with all of your winter recruits playing important roles.

I'm not going to get carried away. There'll be days this season where the moaners will be out after a poor display, but this was a highly professional performance by a Derbyshire side, one doing something that they often failed to do last year. We finished a team off when they were on the ropes.

In doing that they were aided by two wickets from an impressive Mark Footitt, with Tim Groenewald opening the door with the huge dismissal of Mark Ramprakash for a duck. Although we kept chipping away, when the last hour started the hosts must have entertained hopes of salvaging a draw.

Which is when, of course, Robin Peterson (pictured) earned his corn, following his first innings 3-87 with even better figures of 3-32 in 20 overs. With Greg Smith bowling both seam and spin, Graham Wagg had a lighter than usual workload and John Morris will reflect on a job well done.

He can also reflect on the contribution of his winter signings, with Lee Goddard batting well and keeping tidily to go with the bowling of Peterson and Footitt. This is a result that has put down a marker and there will be a few sides looking at Derbyshire in a different light now.

Of course, we now need to do it consistently and it will count for little if we don't turn up against Leicestershire at the County Ground later in the week, but winning is a good habit and the boys "done well" today, to quote the football parlance.

Earlier Cap'n Fantastic took his second innings score to an unbeaten 140 and there were good runs from Dan Redfern as Derbyshire pushed for the declaration. If any one thing summed up a fine team display, it was Graham Wagg's selfless hitting (2 sixes, a four and out) that enabled us to do so earlier than might otherwise have been the case. No thought of his average, just doing it for the team. It was good to see.

Last night I wrote that Chris Rogers could be an outside bet of scoring a thousand before the end of May. The Times correspondent also suggested this today, though he included in his tally of those who have done it before, the players who scored a thousand by the end of April. He also suggested the latter feat may not be beyond Chris Rogers, although the fact that Rogers only has six more knocks in April might make that a tad fanciful.

With 340 already, and potentially 12 more innings before the end of May, I would reckon the other landmark is eminently possible. From here, he would only need to average 50 per innings, very much within the compass of an outstanding cricketer. I'm sure he'll not even think about it, certainly not at this stage and will take each innings as it comes.

So, enjoy your evening, my friends. as I know I will. Watch the highlights later on and rejoice in a job well done by our team.

I'll not get carried away, but John Major, Sir Jack Hobbs, Peter May, Jim Laker, Mark Butcher and Alec Stewart - your boys took a hell of a beating!