Monday musings

There's a nice article in the Derby Telegraph today by Gerald Mortimer, putting the clock back to the 1993 Lords Final win over Lancashire.

It is a game that lives long in the memory and the writer does a good job in capturing the salient moments of a game that was as dramatic as any final ever seen on that hallowed and revered turf. The wonderful batting of Dominic Cork, Tim O'Gorman and Karl Krikken, that final over by Frank Griffith and a tigerish fielding performance made you proud to be a Derbyshire fan. Much the same as last season did, to be honest.

There was an interesting comment below my last piece by Mark, who expects another powerful season from Warwickshire. While they were a standout team last year, I have a few reservations about their replicating it this time around.

For one thing, they are likely to lose Chris Woakes to England, as well as Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott. The latter two are rarely there anyway, but Woakes, Keith Barker and Chris Wright were standouts last year. They only need to lose one of the latter and their sea, attack is down to the still scatter gun and inconsistent Boyd Rankin, together with the largely unproven new recruit from Yorkshire, Oliver Hannon-Dalby.

Then there's the future of all-rounder Rikki Clarke, who won't commit past this season, partly because of his disappointment in Dougie Brown getting the coach's job over Graeme Welch. Stories suggest that this feeling is shared by a fair proportion of the dressing room, something they may work around, but then again may not.

A bad or indifferent start won't ease the divisive atmosphere and we all saw, with Lancashire last summer, what can happen when a team has a bad first few weeks. I'm not suggesting that they will 'emulate' the red rose county in being relegated, but I don't see consecutive titles as a matter of course.

I am happy to go on record right now and suggest that Derbyshire won't be overawed or out of their depth in the coming championship campaign. They have still to convince me that they have the nous, the composure in run chases and the savvy to maintain tight lines and lengths when it really matters in one-day games. But in four-day cricket I don't expect us to be overawed or totally outplayed on a regular basis.

There will be days when we do badly, when we come up against an in-form Nottinghamshire or Somerset and get a pasting. I still expect to see us fighting though and anyone expecting to see us in the top tier simply to make up numbers will get a surprise.

I think there are three or four teams, at least, that we can beat in that division.

At the end of it all, we only need to finish above two of them.

Enjoy your evening