If any remaining sceptics needed proof of the spirit in the Derbyshire camp it was provided today with another excellent performance that, with better luck from the weather, would have produced a win.
We did the early work, keeping the target to under 230 with fine bowling. Greg Smith continued an impressive start to the season with four wickets, while there were three more for the talented Azeem Rafiq, a young man getting betterwith every match (get that loan deal lengthened Krikk...)
Yet 223 was not going to be easy on a wicket on which you were never really 'in'. When we slipped quickly to 29-3, old-style Derbyshire would have declined to 75 all out. Not these guys though. Dan Redfern and Wes Durston started the recovery before Dan was caught at short leg, then Greg Smith played some good shots before departing with the game in the balance at 118-5.
Then came the skipper, man enough to support the chairman and tell the world what has been happening. Slowly at first the runs started to come and the two would almost certainly have seen us to an easy win but for the weather. At 201 with the rain falling, Sutton departed to a shot he would not have played in normal circumstances but there was barely time for Ross Whiteley to get to the crease before the heavens opened and the game was declared a draw.
Wes Durston's innings deserved to be a match-winning one and was the latest in a sequence of fine knocks. An unbeaten 90 from 101 balls on a surface that gave the bowlers every chance was a great effort. That century isn't too far away.
The win points would have been useful and thoroughly deserved. The point (singular) had been made, however - the team is together, they're playing positive cricket and they won't lie down.
Full credit to all of them. Now for a big game in Sussex.
Big game! The way our players have behaved this week on the John Morris affair I'd sack the lot!
ReplyDeleteCan we have another poll on the Morris affair please?
ReplyDeleteYeah poll would be gd
ReplyDeleteWith great respect to Anonymous (13/5 @21.51) if the chairman of the club asks you your opinion what are you going to do? I presume that he wanted to hear the truth, and if the weight of opinion is what it seems to have been then there is not a lot more that he could do.
ReplyDeleteWe will probably never know all that was said, on either side, so as much as I had previously thought that JM was doing a reasonable job, with the side playing well under Luke Sutton's captaincy, we have to get behind the team and I am sure that they will do all they can to maintain the progress made so far.
One more thing, I thought that it took courage, and displayed dignity for Sutts to come out as he did and put the teams point of view, so that the chairman didn't catch unnecessary blame for the actions taken.
if david masters had stood on the boundary instead of drifting in, durston would have been out and essex would have walked it. also had essex pixked 11 players rather than 10, they would have won. tsotebe simply does not count as a player, with his lack of effort and attitude.
ReplyDelete