Just imagine if the very much in form Mitchell Santner had not sustained the knee injury that ruled him out of a Derbyshire stint. Or if the equally talented, and also left-handed Luis Reece hadn't been ruled out effectively for the season by his foot injury.
Or if we had been brave enough to make a change in the T20 captaincy and give it to Alex Hughes, who I think is talented and respected enough to handle the role. Or to Daryn Smit, a respected captain from his time in South Africa.
And if we had picked the best wicket-keeper in the club, who had the better rate with the bat, too, and not prevaricated and picked two of them for the first few games, thus unbalancing the squad.
How much better might our T20 performances been?
OK, we wouldn't have seen Lockie Ferguson, which would have been a huge loss, because his superb fast bowling has been the season highlight for me. Yet it could well have been far more successful had we been regularly able to field this eleven:
Godleman
MacLeod
Reece
Madsen
Critchley
Santner
Hughes
Smit
Viljoen
Riaz
Rampaul
Eight bowlers and left/right combos down the order. Three left-arm bowlers too, giving greater variety. I would have fancied greater success with that eleven on the field.
So here is my question to you, ahead of our final match on Friday.
Assuming our new Head of Cricket is as impressed with this year's T20 selections as we were, would you bring back both Riaz and Ferguson? Or bring in Santner? If so, at the expense of which one?
I look forward to your responses!
Would go for Wahab Riaz over Ferguson based on experience and ability to pinch hit. Close. Would love a class spinner, especially one like Santner who is a capable batsmen
ReplyDeleteFerguson and Santner for me. Latter provides beter batting and spin options. Also depending on the timing of the alternative competitions Riaz might only contract for a number of games like this year. Having said that same could apply to both of the Kiwis. Hard to think that Ferguson's performances won't have been noticed by others.
ReplyDeleteOverseas signings this year have given their all - Olivier, Riaz and Ferguson.
I would definitely go for Santner and Wahab. Santner because we don't really have a top class spinner, and Wahab for the reasons Mark Neve suggests in his reply.....Wahab can pinch hit.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest any two from Wahab, Santner and Ferguson for 2019 and I would be quite happy.
Sorry if I'm bringing up things that have been discussed before but reading the parts about the captaincy got me thinking as to what was the reason Wayne Madsen gave up the captaincy ?
ReplyDeleteWas it his decision, if so could he be persuaded to do the job in T20 format ?
We did get promotion under his leadership.
On another issue I see that Monty Panesar has written to every county for a trial. I think he could do a job for a couple of years and help bring Qadri on.
Having only been watching Derbyshire this season, I would say they have chosen well for overseas players. Ferguson's star has risen and it would be a coup to retain his services next year.
ReplyDeleteNot convinced about Rampaul at all and I would hope a home player could match his performances freeing money to be spent elsewhere.
McLeod looks excellent and I think he or Madsen needs to bat most of the innings, hence Madsen's demotion in the order makes little sense.
Having now seen Godleman perform it seems astonishing he was omitted in the early games. Perhaps your comments regarding the keeper explain this. Similarly Critchley surely needs more batting time and an option to mix it up in the middle overs with spin.
Hence, if funds allow ( do DCCC perhaps have the lowest budget of all counties?), Swap Riaz for Santner and Rampaul for a quality Kolpak batsman.
Comment was by StaffsBoy
ReplyDeleteSmit has done nothing to warrant a place in the team, in my mind he is 2nd choice behind Hosein in red ball cricket & Wilson in white ball. Nothing against the guy but he started with the gloves & did not deliver.
ReplyDeleteMy preference is for T20 players who also do a regular overseas stint, I think it gives less disruption. Having said that Wahab has been excellent & It would be great to have him back. Is Santander for the whole season & Riaz for T20 a realistic wish?
Refreshing to see Staffsboy asking if Derbyshire has the lowest playing budget of any county rather than just stating it as an indisputable fact. The ECB collects data to monitor the salary cap, but it’s hard to come by. The only data I’ve seen (courtesy of a Northants blog) is for 2015. We were the 3rd lowest on £659k with Leics ((£635k) and Worcs (£583k) spending less. Given that we’ve spent heavily since then, it's likely that the budget now is much higher. Others may also have increased spending, but with Kent, Durham and Glamorgan working to much tighter budgets, it would be surprising if we were still in the bottom 4.
ReplyDeleteThis has a bearing on next year's t20 overseas. With the commitment of about £350k to Viljoen, Rampaul, Wilson and Smit for next year at least, there may be little to spare to improve contracts for younger players who might be tempted elsewhere or to recruit any of those who've impressed in the t20. I've said before that we should do without the specialist t20 overseas if it gives us an opportunity to retain our own talent, at least until we can shake out some of the poor investments.
I've thought all along that we should have gone for an overseas batsman, particularly after Reece's injury. This would, of course, have meant no Lochie Ferguson, but even with the impact he's had (and the pleasure he's given) an additional quality batsman might have got us across the line in three matches that we fell just short in. Of course, the line might have been further away without Ferguson's wickets and economy, but we had enough unused bowling resources to fill at least part of the gap. Critchley was badly mismanaged at times, and with Reece back in action and Hughes' improvement this year, we should have plenty of bowling next year.
So I'd prioritise a batsman over either Riaz or Ferguson if we can only afford one t20 overseas. Even if we can afford a second, I wouldn’t go back for Santner having seen the impact that the quicks made. If it's a choice between Riaz and Ferguson, I'd go with the former with a slightly heavy heart and subject to revision once we see how Ferguson does in the championship. I'm not yet convinced that Ferguson isn't a one-trick pony (although straight yorkers at 90mph plus is one hell of a trick), and I also suspect that if he turns out to have more tricks, NZ will probably not be making him as available next year.
I see we’re back to the Smit argument again. I’m underwhelmed by Gary Wilson's performances. His batting is pedestrian and his insistence on coming in at 5 or 6 ahead of more dynamic batsmen is frustrating. His captaincy was unimpressive at times, and his wicket-keeping was adequate at best. But to suggest that Smit is a better option flies in the face of the evidence. He’s failed repeatedly and in all formats as a batsman over 2 seasons, and in one day cricket, it's not just a matter of not scoring enough runs and not scoring quickly enough, it's the way he eats up dot balls at the start of innings and starves his partners of the strike (most vividly shown in the first Worcs match where he kept Dal off strike), and has such a limited range of shots (almost exclusively square or behind square) that he's easily kept quiet or limited to singles. His wicket-keeping hasn't been particularly good all summer, and he was poor in at least two of the matches we lost at the start of the t20. I don’t know much about his captaincy experience, except that under his leadership, his franchise won nothing, and once he was replaced in 2013, they were much more successful. We’ve seen that he has a very sharp cricket brain, but I don’t think this and his modest captaincy record suggests anything to offset his playing shortcomings. With Wilson ineligible after next year and very few people thinking a further contract after next year will be justified for Smit, we absolutely need to give some attention to the longer-term t20 captaincy, but think we need to look elsewhere in the squad.