With the exception of Lockie Ferguson and Calum MacLeod, there is no Derbyshire player will look back on last night's local derby with Nottinghamshire with any pride.
The bottom line is that this Derbyshire side, in the absence of Luis Reece, looks short of a bowler whichever eleven takes the field, but also looks short of around three batsmen. The excellent streams provided by the county have enabled me to see most of the games so far and at no point has our batting looked like being able to score anywhere near the runs we need to win matches at this level. Similarly the bowling, far from being the potent force we hoped for, looks fairly run of the mill.
Viljoen, a high cost Kolpak signing, is so unimpressive in the nets that he isn't getting picked, Rampaul looks a considerable distance from a bowler who has played this format around the world and Critchley looks shorn of confidence with bat and ball. Alex Hughes bowled well though, as he often does in this format, but in that company he shouldn't be a stand out.
Meanwhile Wahib Riaz is OK, but I wouldn't probably go further than that. He doesn't look like he will run through a side any time soon and, while rhythmic, hasn't yet suggested that the pace is still there. That is in direct contrast to Lockie Ferguson, who came as perhaps the most 'under the radar' overseas signing we have made, but looks a very astute piece of work from John Wright.
Ferguson has a beautifully disguised slower yorker, but a blindingly quick fast one, which in turn accounted for three Nottinghamshire batsmen last night. This could have been a closer game had he been able to bowl more, as he troubled Dan Christian, but the visiting captain and Tom Moores took Nottinghamshire to a total that last year would have been within our compass. This year, it was seriously outwith it.
Ben Slater set off like a train, but as too often happens when he does he got out and skied a catch to square leg. At no point thereafter did we look remotely like chasing down the required total. Alex Hughes came in at three but was run out when oddly running on a curve, rather than straight, Matt Critchley looked a little better but didn't last long, while even Wayne Madsen looked out of touch and made only six from 14 balls.
Gary Wilson doesn't look like scoring runs any time soon and didn't. The captaincy must be the only thing keeping him in this side, as his slowness between the wickets and in the field is far from an asset to it. For me, he looks less likely to score runs than Daryn Smit, a far superior keeper, so should also hand over the captaincy to the South African. Anuj Dal, fresh from scoring 60 from 30 balls for the second team, was oddly kept back to number eight, again looked inventive but was out in a vain attempt at a hopeless pursuit.
MacLeod looked a good player again, but would have been better at three than five. With limited options available, and another game this afternoon at Old Trafford, my side against Lancashire would be as follows:
Slater
Dal
MacLeod
Madsen
Hughes
Critchley
Smit
McKiernan
Riaz
Ferguson
Rampaul
Derbyshire are a better side and a better collection of individuals than they are showing at present, but three defeats from three matches, together with far too much self-inflicted damage, is leaving them well adrift of the rest of this group.
Sadly, it is hard to see it improving any time soon, unless someone produces something very special.
Everything that Peak Fan as written is correct & I fully agree with.
ReplyDeleteYou can change the batting order but it isn't going to make much difference. The thing missing is quality & ability to hit the boundaries on a regular basis.
The bowling other than Ferguson is average, no real strength in depth.I shudder when Critchley comes on to bowl because I know where the ball will end up at least once an over!
Can't see us getting any change from Lancashire today.
Anyway Little Mix are in town next week, that will make the men in suits happy with all the takings from the event. I have no problem with the event other than to say put the money back into the cricket & lets have a competitive team on the field that the supporters can be proud of.
MH
I agree with your comments. We hit 3 6s, Notts hit 8. I was impressed how Notts targeted the first ball of the non powerplay overs for a boundary. If anyone has the stats I would be interested in knowing how many of those 13 balls went for 4 or 6.
ReplyDeleteFor today I would rest "Rampaul" & bring in either Viljoen or Sharif. I also think that asking Dal to open would be a tough ask so would prefer to stick to Critchley who looked better last night.
Time for Wright & Cork to show the value of their coaching
Turned off after the run out for Hughes. He didn’t even run straight. Absolutely schoolboy cricket. No idea what happened after that. I was fuming. Saw the scorecard and MacLeod came in too low. He should be opening our power play is a joke
ReplyDeleteSo many of us wanted a good batsmen as overseas. We were told to bow to John Wright and fair enough. He is a legend but I really do worry he doesn’t watch us before he turns up. As if he did he would have signed Guptill who surely we must have had a chance with due to existing relationship, NZ etc
ReplyDeleteI could have had up to 8 free tickets last night. My lack of enthusiasm coupled with zero take up from friends (after they went and couldn’t get a drink last week) meant they went unused. I’m glad too. What a sorry tale. We play A side somehow short of both batting and bowling. I feel sorry for some of them as they know there’s little hope of reversing the trend. Watching and listening as I did last night what disturbed me most of all was seeing how utterly shot Wayne Madsen looked. The skipper must cut adrift quickly as he’s a liability; dropped a catch, lumpen captaincy and stagnant batting.
ReplyDeleteI would prob go with that team possibly sharif instead of rampaul as he is a liability in the field. Bottom line is several players are performing well below par at the moment.
ReplyDeleteUnchanged squad today. I am gobsmacked. Godleman smashed a good score for the seconds. Get him back in there.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible at this stage to add godleman ? I would have the team u named but with billy g in for Hughes. Dal and mclean offer seam options and crotch mc kir nan and made spin along with 3 quick. Order would be
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Billy g
Mcleod
Mads
Dal
Critch
Mckiernon
Smit
Riaz
Fergus on
Rampaul
I like Hughes, but he can't buy a run at the moment.
On a different tack,I'm coming around to the idea of offering Chesney a red ball contract. Am certainly not convinced by him in white ball and t20,but maybe in red ball
We can be good for each other this time round. Both the club and him have the incentive and we all know that when Chesney does go big, he goes very big. Just what we need in the cc at themoment
One of the saddest things about last night was how half a near capacity crowd walked out in the 10 minutes after Madsen's dismissal, and I doubt if there were more than a few hundred left by the end. If that doesn't tell the management at Derby that change is needed, nothing will.
ReplyDeleteThrilling as Ferguson's bowling was, there was no stage at which Derbyshire looked capable of winning this. It was telling that in his post-match interview, Wilson was still insisting that they've picked the best squad and it's the execution of plans that isn't good enough. There is a stubborn, almost arrogant disregard for the facts that are clear for everyone to see except for those making the decisions that the plans aren't right, the squad isn't right, the selections aren't right, the tactical decisions aren't right, and the leadership isn't right.
Amongst a host of poor decisions last night, Wilson's decision to delay bringing Critchley on until Christian was well set was the worst. perhaps the only case of a young Lion being thrown to a Christian? At one point, Critchley was surrounded by Smit, Wilson, Riaz and Madsen, all waving and pointing, until he himself walked away with an angry dismissive wave of his hand. He's not in poor form, he's batting in the wrong place, bowling at the wrong times, and having different advice forced down his throat from a group of senior players who would do better to take care of their own games, and making sure that simple catches don't get dropped, byes don't get gloved away to let Notts most dangerous batsman back on strike in the last over, and reverse sweeps are used to dominate not in desperation.
I agree about Smit taking over as captain and dropping Wilson, but only because of the lack of options in this match. Smit's own poor batting and the decline in his wicket-keeping this year means that I'll move him aside for the next game as well.
Otherwise, I'll go with most of the side you suggest, but Macleod would be better opening than Dal. Well as he's played so far, Macleod isn't a powerful striker but rotates the strike well, and might calm Slater down a bit. At the moment, we don't need to think about how we can get to 60 in the powerplay, but simply how to avoid being 30-3. Dal needs to be given the chance to bat for longer than he's been allowed in either game and I'd have him at 4 with Hughes and Critchley back in positions they are more familiar with. I'd also leave out Rampaul and play Sharif instead. I'm not particularly comfortable having two novice bowlers (particularly when I haven't seen one and hardly any of the other) but they offer some runs, mobility in the field, and more flexibility in the bowling to reduce the reliance on Critchley, Hughes and Madsen. Rampaul bowled a clever last over, as he often does, but it doesn't compensate for how poorly he bowls at other times, and his fielding last night was a shambles even by his own standards.
To be honest, I don't expect to see any or much of this happening. The stubborn determination to prove that they are right and all of the doubters are wrong will paralyse Derbyshire's leadership, and the vested interests of those who are not contributing will see to the rest. Maybe we'll see a "blind cat stumbles over a dead rat" win against Lancashire, but otherwise we have to pin any last hopes on a radical rethink before the match against Northants next week, perhaps the only side that are in worse shape than we are.
It's a horrible state of affairs at Derbyshire on and off the pitch. The team are shot at, zero confidence, very little quality and leaderless. That team you selected to play against Lancashire will get hammered Peakfan, infact it doesn't really matter which eleven we select it's a hopeless cause.
ReplyDeleteThe batting is a sham, we failed to address it we're now paying big time. Wilson will continue doing a rubbish job of captaining us, batting like a complete novice going at a run a ball or less, truly pathetic.
I know we've had some terrible Derbyshire sides over the years, but we always tried to show a bit of character, we're stacked full of surrender monkeys now.
Very accurate summary PF. Fergusons bowling was excellent, quick with a well disguised slower ball, you could see both mullaney and fraine when they were out indicate to the not out batsman back of the hand. Currently no one in dccc team is able to hit cleanly out of the ground, we top edge over the ropes, Moore's and christian hit full and cleanly straight. The gap between our bowling, trying to squeeze 8 overs from 3 bowlers, and Notts was very wide, 6 bowlers used all could be classed as frontline bowlers. What it must be to have your all-rounder hitting so cleanly, then opening the bowling kicking his run up more or less off the Oki sightscreens. Still cannot understand why we don't bring Billy in to at least strengthen the batting at the expense of either Wilson or Smit, keep Critchleys batting position floating to try and take advantage when he is under less pressure (if that time ever comes). Hopefully containing Lancs to 157 today will give them hope and confidence for the rest of the campaign.
ReplyDeleteI blame it all on Hosein 😉
ReplyDelete