Kent 365-6 (Denly 106, Crawley 96, Palladino 2-63, Viljoen 2-70)
v Derbyshire
It was a hard grind for Derbyshire yesterday, on a pitch which was 'the colour of bleached straw' according to one reporter.
Presumably to negate the threat of Darren Stevens and Matt Henry, though what Lockie Ferguson and Hardus Viljoen thought of it might be one for after the nine o'clock watershed. Time will tell how the Kent men do on it, but the happiest of our seamers might well have been Ravi Rampaul, given a match off after his illness in the last game.
To be fair, Derbyshire came back well in the final session and, at 365-6, Kent shaded the day but not by as much as may have been thought. Had Matt Critchley not dropped centurion Joe Denly first ball, there might have been even greater parity.
We go again today and will hope to wrap up the innings quickly, but that is far from guaranteed on such a wicket and with the talented Bell-Drummond going well.
It was a challenging day for Harvey Hosein, who found that when bowling lines go awry they go VERY awry. Sixteen byes and five penalty runs were among 35 extras, a statistic that always makes me grit my teeth and shake my head. Surely first-class bowlers can bowl straight?
On such wickets you can ill afford to be giving away runs in such a profligate manner and we have done that too many times this summer.
Let's hope our batsmen, including debutant Tom Lace, can make an equally decent fist of things today.
Yet again bowling shocking how can you let the oppo be 60/1 after 10 or whatever it was. Same as last week. Palladino bowling as many maidens as everyone else combined. Palladino really is something else and he is so consistent no matter what the pitch is like you can always pretty much guarantee he picks up a couple of wickets.
ReplyDeleteIt was, in all honesty, a fairly scruffy day all round for Derbyshire. None of the bowlers were near their best and all were guilty of wayward bowling at times. The fielding was variable, with Ervine also dropping a catch at slip, though with Crawley out 3 runs later, it wasn't as expensive as Critchley's drop of Denly. Apart from one that bounced in front of Madsen, I don't think there was anything else resembling a catch. There were innumerable misfields, including one where Lace dived over the ball in an inauspicious start to his Derbyshire career, overthrows and a deflection by Hosein, who was nowhere near his best, on to the helmet.
ReplyDeleteFerguson, after his first spell, and Hughes, were probably the best bowlers, and I do wonder about bowling Viljoen and Ferguson in partnership, as it's the third time in successive innings they've been going at 6 and 7 an over in the opening 10. I understand that Palladino will be happier with the lacquer off one side of the ball, but having his control at one end gives the batsmen more to think about than simply swinging their arms through the line and pulling the short ball from two bowlers who are actually quite similar.
I don't think the pitch is as straightforward as many think. There's virtually no lateral movement, but no pace either, and batsmen were often mistiming shots. I think Kent might still have got value from Stevens even without much movement. If it turns later, the spinners will come more into play, although they'll have to bowl a lot better than they did on the first day, Qadri in particular bowling as poor an over as I've seen from him.