At 75-6 today, most Derbyshire fans would have snatched your hand off for a total of 175.That we made 256, our biggest total of the embryonic summer, was largely due to the sublime Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with excellent assistance from Jonathan Clare and Tony Palladino. The latter now contributes with the bat with sufficient regularity to be close to all-rounder status, while Clare displayed some trade mark powerful strokes before going just short of 50.
Chanderpaul is a wonderful player, albeit one with a technique all of his own. You wouldn't find it in a coaching manual, but you don't get many players closing fast on 300 first-class matches with an average of 57. His powers of concentration are quite remarkable and he looks set to be a massive asset to Derbyshire this summer.
Mind you, as things stand we could do with a re-writing of the rules so he can bat at both ends. The late innings recovery cannot and should not mask the failings of the batting once more. In their defence we again lost a toss, and as I suggested on Radio Derby this morning, Nottinghamshire were quick to decide to bowl.
Yet we need some of the top order to start scoring runs. Perhaps we do need to look at the skipper moving into the middle order, probably to five, and finding another opener. Dan Redfern is unquestionably a fine player, but needs to realise that the flashing (an apposite word) drives are not percentage shots at this time of year. We have next to nothing coming from five and six at present, but Madsen could be revitalised away from the new ball.
The visitors lost Andre Adams and he won't bowl again in this match. Given that Stuart Broad is unlikely to bowl 25 overs second time around, one would hope that we could make a better fist again Fletcher, Gurney and Patel than we did today.
Tomorrow will be a big one and Notts will aim to bat all of it and into Friday, before leaving us 250-300 behind. Can our attack limit them to a similar tally to the one we made?
We'll soon find out.
PS Thinking back to last week's Nottingham Post headline 'Mullaney sends message ahead of Derbyshire clash'.
I can only assume the message was "I know I'm not going to play, but..."
The tail end spirit came riding to the rescue again. Chanderpaul was awesome and in Palladino and Clare he managed to find a couple of people to stick it out with him.
ReplyDeleteThe overall form of the batsmen is really becoming a major worry which shows no sign of ending. Only Godleman has passed 50 and whilst he didn,t give his wicket away as easily as some of his collegues he missed out on a sizeable score having got himself in. Something of a familiar story for those who do occasionally get into double figures.
I have a feeling Notts will go hurtling past our total and we could be facing a sizeable deficit. I could be wrong but Notts didn,t appear to be in much trouble when batting which doesn,t auger well. The ball is still quite new so it,s essential we make some early inroads tomorrow,if and when the weather allows.
Let,s see how we fare second time around before discussing any changes,either technical or personnel wise. Frankly,we don,t have too many options regarding the latter,only Borrington who is is unlikely to prove any better than those he may replace.
We can still get ourselves back into this game with some luck and hard work. We need Wainwright to get amongst the wickets tomorrow if his selection ahead of Turner is to be justified. We are still in there,just,but we need a good first session or it,s going to be a long day.