Happy Birthday to me...

The blog is five years old today. Feel free to mark it with a little sotto voce song if you will, but I'll not be sending out bits of cake because I didn't have one...

Still, it was a good year to reach that landmark, with 150,000 visits recorded on the site. There's a further 20,000-plus come in through the blog's usage in India this year too, with the total combined visits now over 400,000. Amazing really and I still have to pinch myself to realise it has taken off so well. Interest in Derbyshire cricket is alive and well my friends.

There's a few jungle drums a-beating about the loss at Somerset, but if you're going to have a bad one, get it out of the way early and when it doesn't matter too much. Maybe it was all part of a cunning plan to lull them into a false sense of security, but we will look to do much better. I think we will too, but as I've said all along, anything we get from Somerset, Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire is a bonus. I'd gladly take draw points from those games, as its the other sides who are our realistic wins.

That's not being defeatist, more honest. Whatever happens this summer, neither I nor no one else should lose sight of the fact that this side is a work in progress, one that will not peak for another four or five years. Maybe we over-achieved last year, but I think we got our just rewards for a solid campaign in which we played some terrific cricket.

Success this year would be third bottom; anything more than that would be remarkable. I think we can be comfortably mid-table, but we'll need to show the same resilience, especially with the bat, that was a feature of our cricket in 2012.

Our glittering diamond arrives tomorrow and there will be considerable focus on Shivnarine Chanderpaul and what he might achieve. In a full summer he could get close to 1500 runs, but we shouldn't lose track of the fact that he cannot - MUST not  - be a one man side. I'm sure that time spent in the nets, dressing room and middle with the West Indian legend over the next two years will be invaluable to our young batsmen. It is stupid to suggest that they are anything other than talented, but they need to take their games to the next level now.

As I said last night, breezy thirties and forties are of little use now. As my old Dad always said and anyone who has played the game will agree, when you get to that score your feet are moving, your hands and eyes are coordinated and you feel pretty good about your game. A momentary lapse of concentration can scupper you though. As Paul Nixon pointed out in his autobiography last year, the sight of a pretty girl on the boundary, a bag being blown across the outfield or seeing someone you know by the sightscreen can be all it takes to fail to focus on the next ball. Then boom...you're gone.

I'll be blogging my season preview this weekend, so look out for that.

On to other things and apologies to those trying to join in the Telegraph Fantasy League for  Derbyshire fans. To join it you need the PIN, which is 8031395 and its name, which is PEAKFAN BLOG N FORUM. Excuse the abbreviation in the middle but there's a somewhat limited number of characters available.

I'd love to see a number of you involved and if we get 15 teams involved there's medals available for the top three managers. Do you need further incentive? I hope not...

Finally tonight, much as I predicted in a recent post, Usman Khawaja failed to make the initial cut of Australians given contracts today. It was ironic, if a little amusing, to hear the noises being made about 'lack of cricket' and 'insufficient exposure to the red ball'. Hmmm...he was on tour with a national side that got seriously cuffed in India, so whose fault is that.

Former Derbyshire star Chris Rogers and Nottinghamshire man Adam Voges seem to be in contention for the Ashes, based on their experience of English conditions. The way they have batted in recent months, I'm surprised that Michael di Venuto himself and Cathy Freeman aren't in contention. Bad back or not, Diva would still be a better bet than some recently seen in the baggy green...

See you soon. Tomorrow is Friday. Bliss...