Kent have slipped from 137-2 to 154-9...surely Derbyshire are going to be promoted now?
We'll save the champers for now, but get it on ice...
Postscript - 170 all out, no bonus points. Robert Croft, arch-nemesis of Derbyshire over so many summers, you are a star!Now 7-2 in the second innings, following on...
Clearly my recent coaching session with the Glammy crew has paid dividends!
ReplyDeleteThis was not the way the bookies would have had it. To be honest, I doubt any Derbyshire follower would have expected this either.
However, until the fat lady sings, hold on to your hats......
MASTERVILLAIN
it's not over. Wait - you just don't know .
ReplyDeleteGlamorous Glamorgan, who honestly saw that performance coming. Ok Kent can turn it around, but it's looking highly unlikely. Looks like we're going up boys and we may aswell play for the draw now.
ReplyDeleteMark, I think if you re-read my "Weekend warmer" of September 9 - the first paragraph - your question will be answered!
ReplyDeleteAs for a draw - if we're up, lets try to do so by winning it. Chelmsford is not yet a done deal...
If we get to 250 and win the match we go up as champions. No way Kent are going to win so this should be our aim. Hopefully Khawaja and Whiteley can get us to 250, and then let the tail go mad trying to earn us a lead. Incidentally, I wonder if Briggs' flight to Sri Lanka might be delayed so he can return and play for Hampshire these next 2 days...
ReplyDeleteLOL Sam. We've specially registered Amla for the second innings...
ReplyDeleteAfter Anon's comment above, I have to reclaim my name - it's notoveryet. I actually coined the name a few years back on the old 606site, in the year under Houghton when there was an outside chance of promotion going into the last couple of matches. Then it was a rebuke to those who thought Derbyshire were out of it. Now it's a caution to those who think we just have to wait for kent to roll over tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteKent have choked several times this season - most notably when they failed to finish off Hampshire and then threw away a clear winning position against us. Rain in the match against Gloucestershire then deprived them of the chance to make up the ground they had lost, and I pretty much wrote them off as a serious challenger. They still managed to come back from that, and I wouldn't write off the possibility that they can get back from a near impossible position.
If Northeast, Nash and Powell do again what they did against us in the last match, 33-2 turns into 294-4, a lead of 74 and 6 wickets in hand. If this is the position at tea tomorrow, would anyone want to put money on Glamorgan, magnificently as they've done for us so far? I think Kent might be the best placed of the promotion candidates to survive in Division 1 next year, given our inexperience, and the fact that Yorkshire will go up with exactly the same weaknesses that got them relegated last year. So we discount them at our peril.
I'm sure that Derbyshire won't. I've been critical of the lack of flexibility of the game plan over the past few matches when things have been going badly, but today I want to see the same single minded approach. Disregard everything that is happening elsewhere and focus only on what we need to do to win.
Until the fat lady sings mournfully over Kent's defeated body, it's not over yet!
The difference in the two matches, notoveryet, being that a little round off-spinner who has been a very good cricketer wants one last performance before retirement on the sort of track he has enjoyed for decades.
ReplyDeleteI'm not counting chickens, but in life and sport am a positive guy who looks at opportunities. By tea time today... let's leave it there, eh?