Derbyshire 313 and 149 (Madsen 76 not, Durston 57)
Surrey 560
Surrey won by an innings and 98 runs
It was an end of season performance in an end of season game for Derbyshire today, with a limp batting effort in which two men scored all but 16 of the team runs. Or put another way, nine batsmen got sixteen runs between them...
Credit to a good Surrey side who have risen through the division and fully deserve the promotion that is now theirs, but the game, like the one at Derby, emphasised a gulf between the two sides and showed how much work we have to do this winter to be among the promotion pack next year.
It was no surprise that the experienced men did best, the two skippers combining in the only stand of note, with Wayne Madsen standing alone as the good ship Derbyshire sunk below him. While allowing for the absence of an overseas player for the team, the weaknesses in our batting are obvious and have to be addressed in the close season.
Not much more to say really.
Based on the swift decline of our second innings, the end of the season cannot come soon enough now.
I think more than anything peakfan there's problems with the balance of the side, especially in the absence of Alex Hughes. Our two keepers are both very good keepers, but really neither should be any higher than 8 in the order. The fact Hosein is now at 6 only emphasises that. As a result, we have to leave ourselves either a batsman or a bowler short, which makes the letting go of Wayne White look all the more dodgy, as he could bat at 7 if needed. The John Clare of 5 years ago could have done as well, but I think unless we see evidence to the contrary we have to assume he's not going to be the player he was.
ReplyDeleteDurston is currently the best spinner we have, and should be played as such. If that means batting him at 7 or 8, like England do with Moeen Ali, then so be it. If the opposition have a side 5 down, the last thing they'd want is Durston walking out to the middle with free license to play his shots! This could be achieved by moving Thakor and Alex Hughes up, assuming they're both fit of course. That would give us a side of something like: Godleman, Slater, C Hughes, Madsen, A Hughes, Thakor, Durston, Hosein, +3 big quicks. Milnes doesn't seem to be an all rounder, so if he played it would be in the 'quicks' category. I know Critchley needs overs, but there's no point playing him when 9 times out of ten he's going to go at over 5s and not take wickets. Better to work on his skills over the winter and come back again next year
It was a good job catching the last day of the Surrey match wasn’t the only or main reason for being in London, otherwise I’d have been trying to get a refund from the club. I wasn’t optimistic beforehand, but this performance was truly shocking, even by the dismal standards of this season. It isn’t an end of season thing, as it’s been happening all year right back to the first match of the season against Lancashire. It’s been worse against the good teams, but it’s happened against the weaker teams as well. The collapses usually follow a poor bowling performance where we’ve lost control half way through an innings.
ReplyDeleteMuch is made of the fighting spirit but there was precious little of it on Friday. Godleman got a good ball and Hughes got sawn off by the captain (the expletive shouted by Hughes as he headed for the pavilion may not have been captain but certainly began with a “c”, and may say something about team spirit at the moment), Critchley stuck around for a bit, and Durston biffed the ball around in a 1 day run a ball way without ever looking as if he was secure or working to save the game but Madsen apart, the rest was pitiful. I agree with Sam’s point about Durston – he has to play as the spinner but should bat at 7 or 8, where his habit of quick 20s and 30s won’t do as much damage and may help us take back the initiative more often. Milnes is definitely not a number 7 and from what I heard from those who had been there earlier, isn’t a fourth seamer either. As I commented earlier, being asked to bowl only 8 overs before the second new ball indicates very little confidence in him from the captain. With the poor returns from Cotton as well as the inability of Critchley to bowl long spells, it puts an unreasonable strain on Footitt and Palladino, and I’ve watched the former in particular bowling longer and longer spells and coming back earlier as the season’s progressed. He’s looking tired and frustrated but always ready to throw himself in for another spell, and it might be the prospect of two or three more years of this that is making him look elsewhere. Taylor hasn’t been at his best but at least took wickets, which Cotton rarely looks like doing.
The one bright spot for me was a good, if cruel, joke at our expense from a Surrey supporter. “They’ve struggled to find an appropriate name. They tried Scorpions but didn’t sting, and tried the Pheonix but didn’t rise from the ashes. They’ve got it right now with the Falcons – they hover for a bit and then nose dive at great speed”.
All in all, it’s a grim prospect for the rest of the season. A poor result against Essex, and the game against Leicestershire could really be a battle for the wooden spoon. Perhaps Spain is the best place to be watching it from, Peakfan!