On Wednesday we're going to Lords. Had we paid much heed to the pre-season comments of experts, it may well have been Lourdes. Pray for a miracle...
Yet we head there in good spirits after a battling display at Edgbaston. Early reports suggest that James Harris won't play, but Steve Finn looks set to do so. It will make for another stiff challenge, but we could hardly expect to gain promotion then play reserve sides. To become one of the best you have to mix it with them, so let's start now.
It looks like being a very open division, certainly if the opening round of games is anything to go by. Somerset and Nottinghamshire will have been among most people's favourites, yet both went down to defeats. As I wrote a couple of weeks back, any side could make a bad start, as Lancashire did last year, then spend the rest of the campaign playing catch up. The weather may have been a contributory factor to the Edgbaston draw, but no one should underestimate the importance of those draw points.
I don't expect any change to the thirteen from the first game, as no one deserves to be omitted after only one and a half innings in four days. Nor was there anyone making a forcible case for inclusion from the second team fixture last week, which ended in a heavy defeat to Essex. The final eleven will be decided after Karl Krikken and Wayne Madsen have a look at the Lords pitch, but at this stage of the season it is unlikely to be anything other than a track to help their star England seamer.
That being the case, it should be something that will make Messrs Palladino, Groenewald and Turner smile knowingly. It will then come down to which side's batting copes the best with conditions. Billy Godleman will know the track pretty well, having started his career there, while Shivnarine Chanderpaul has batted and batted and batted at Lords a few times...
It will be a thrill for Derbyshire fans to see their heroes back at the home of cricket. It will be an even greater one for the players themselves to appear there, many of them for the first time. One can only imagine what it will be like for them to walk through the Long Room on the way to the wicket.
I hope that the weather is favourable and we get a good game. Middlesex will be up for it after thrashing Nottinghamshire, so it will be a good test for our boys.
Will they rise to it? I think so, but we'll find out soon enough.
The weather looks quite reasonable for the Southeast,bar the odd light shower.
ReplyDeleteAssuming fitness I would expect the same team to be picked. the only tweak would be Hughes batting at 3 with Durston,Redfern and Whiteley at 5 through 7.
Finn is a threat but we mustn,t lose sight of the fact he will only bowl 15 overs or so in a day. The real threat may prove to be the "lesser" bowlers.
Lords is usually a good pitch so there is no reason we can,t make a decent total whether we bat first or second. What we could do without is losing wickets in clusters and handing Middlesex the initiative. I,m confident we can make a real fist of this game and if we play to our potential there is no reason we can,t win it.
Might get nearly all four days worth of play, which is a nice change. I honestly think we'll be up against it to get anything from Middlesex. They are another side packed with quality. Our batting worries me already.
ReplyDeleteI'll be very disappointed to see us going again without Wainwright. He exploded the myth last year at this time about spinners and early season wickets, and Jeetan Patel showed the difference a decent spinner can do even in unhelpful conditions. The extra batsman didn't make a deal of difference against Warwickshire, particularly as Wainwright himself might have contributed as much with the bat. nis neither here nor there in this con r
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