Tuesday 22 May 2018

Derbyshire v Durham RLODC

It's 'as you were' for Derbyshire tomorrow, with an unnamed fourteen for the visit of Durham to the 3aaa County Ground for the RLODC.

Logically, with Durham the only side still to win a match, this is a game that we should win, but since when did logic come into cricket?

As I said after the defeat at Worcestershire, we made too many mistakes and I don't buy an excuse that there were 'better options' than Duanne Olivier available to bowl the closing overs. I've said myself that he is more expensive than we might have wanted at times, but he had bowled six overs for twelve and we were otherwise bowling at Ross Whiteley with a guy in his second match for the county.

It still makes little sense to me, but it is the past and we must aim to get back on track tomorrow. I would still tweak the side, as I said then, with an extra batsman in place of a bowler, especially with the excellent all round options available to us. Gary Wilson would give us greater depth to the batting line up, though Callum Brodrick would let no one down and adds considerably to the fielding.

As for our visitors, they welcome back the excellent Chris Rushworth, who has missed the last few matches with injury. Tom Latham replaces Aiden Markram as overseas player in this squad:

Tom Latham (c), Cameron Steel, Will Smith, Graham Clark, Michael Richardson, Paul Collingwood, Stuart Poynter (wk), Ryan Pringle, James Weighell, Nathan Rimmington, Chris Rushworth, Matt Dixon, George Harding

It is a game we can win, a game we have to win if we are to maintain interest in progression. On paper, our visitors are not one of the group's stronger teams, but they have plenty of talent, even without Mark Wood, who very nearly embarrassed us on the last day of the recent championship fixture.

I'm happy to predict a win, but only if we produce the team display that is usually required.

We'll see soon enough.

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