Friday 7 September 2018

Morning after thoughts

It is always nice to be able to write a piece the morning after and reflect on a win.

While one has to take into account the standard of opposition, and Glamorgan, with a couple of exceptions, were a poor side, you can only beat what is in front of you. Our win was the result of a real team effort on a tricky wicket, with most of the side contributing well. Runs were harder to come by and I think you see the real merits of a batsman on such tracks.

Many a flat track bully has boosted their season average on flat wickets and against poor attacks and there are plenty in the international game whose impressive average is inflated by some big innings against lesser sides.

Conversely, there's a certain pressure with bowling on wickets that help you. It's nice when you rip your fingers across the seam and it jags sideways, but there is then an expectation that you do your stuff. As Edwin Smith once said to me, most of our wickets in the 50's were prepared for Gladwin and Jackson, who seldom let us down, but he had to be ready to do his stuff when the opposition prepared a turner.

There's been a lot of discussion about the signings of Tom Lace and Martin Andersson. I have previously made the point that Lace was a 'horses for courses' signing as an opener and he has impressed so far. My understanding, from a comment made at the member's meeting, is that he 'might' be available for next season, though whether as a loan signing or on a permanent deal wasn't made clear. He is contracted to Middlesex until the end of 2020, so a loan would seem the most likely scenario, if there is one.

Despite a comment elsewhere on the blog, Andersson is contracted to the same date and only recently signed a new deal. Both, one would think, might better develop their careers playing in our first team than Middlesex seconds and they have plenty of players ahead of them at that county.

I would have no issue with either, from what we have so far seen and they appear to have fitted in well. The question, as I have said before, is the inference it makes about our own development structure.

I know we have no opening batsman and no seam bowlers so far advanced in their development. My concern is the message it sends out about the current younger players and about the academy structure itself.

At present, we seem to develop a handful, let them go when they haven't made it by 21 and then start again. Leicestershire picked up Parkinson and Taylor and are rumoured to be in the wings should Will Davis be released. Tom Knight was messed around dreadfully and there are plenty who argued the case for Ben Cotton's retention.

Either these players were poorly managed or they were never quite good enough. Yet we need to look at this. Why play Tom Wood all season, watch him score a thousand runs and not play him, given opportunity? What does it say to Callum Brodrick?

The second team played last week at Chesterfield and there was no coach with them. Mal Loye was apparently away with the Academy and it cannot be right that the players we are hoping will step into the senior side have no one to guide, nurture or fight their cause. How can you know, from a distance, that a fifty was classy and skilled, or full of edges and mistimed shots? Or that five wickets were well-earned, rather than the result of poor shots and blinding catches?

I cannot now see a way into the side this season for Anuj Dal. It may be that the consensus is of style but no substance, but perhaps we will never know. For what its worth, whatever structure David Houghton comes up with must surely include someone who handles the second team and someone else to take the academy. Otherwise you end up with someone spread too thinly to do either job well. Like a good few others, I have struggled to get a handle on many of the second team players this year and too often it has appeared a bit of a rag, tag and bobtail outfit.

It's a shame and needs to be sorted over the winter.

Postscript: I note that the giant 21-year old Zimababwe fast bowler Blessing Muzarabani, who has held talks with Northamptonshire, has not yet signed for the county.

Muzarabani, who quit international cricket for a county career, played for our seconds earlier in the season.

I just wonder if he might be on Dave Houghton's radar? Were there any interest, or the money for that matter, the Head of Cricket's status as a national cricket legend would do us no harm.

Post postscript.. He signed this morning for Northants. Maybe I reminded him he had a contract offer to sign...

5 comments:

  1. We should be signing him for the name alone.....

    However why bring in another fast bowler if Viljoen and Rampaul are still contracted. Could argue that Rampaul should be focussed towards one day appearances although looking back a couple of years ago he did top Surrey's CC bowling averages. Viljoen is such an enigma to me; I desparately want him to do well if only to dispel some of the views that as a SA Kolpak he is ripping Derbyshire off which I genuinely don't think is the case. I'd be keen to see another push for Olivier next season.

    My worry is Critchley. The Northants win apart his bowling has been very ordinary and again with a couple of exceptions he's not progressed with his batting in the CC. So does he qualify as an all rounder. Currently no and his presence means that Quadri's place in the team will be severely limited. What do others think re Critchley?

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  2. Apart from starring in two good wins in Chesterfield week , Critchley has been inconsistent both batting and bowling for the rest of the season to date.
    McKiernan and Brett have looked promising spin bowling options in the 2nd XI this season but look likely never to be seen again in Derbyshire colours.

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  3. Mea culpa on Andersson's contract. I trusted Middlesex' website which says "Martin signed his first professional contract with Middlesex whilst studying at Leeds University in 2016." Having seen somewhere else that he had a three year contract I put 2 and 2 together to make 5. I still think a full year loan would be a great idea, though Middlesex may be harder to arrange loans with next year, as they will be in D2 again and may not be so keen to lend players to a rival.

    Re Davis, it was encouraging to see him bowling in the middle during the lunch break on Wednesday. You always fear the worst when players disappear from sight halfway through the last year of their contract with little explanation. I'd be surprised if he was being put through his paces so late in the year if there's no intention of offering a new contract. But it would be odd anyway if we were prepared to release him. He's never let us down when he's played, often as the only real threat in a weak attack, and sometimes heavily over-bowled by Billy Godleman. What's even more striking is how his record compares with a number of contemporaries who are heavily touted as potential England players and/or the subject of bidding wars among the predator counties, and all of whom have had substantial and disruptive injury records. Out of Olly Stone, Zak Chappell, Tom Barber, Tom Helms, George Garton (who remember almost played for England during the winter) and Saqib Mahmood, Davis has the best strike rate and a better average than Chappell, Garton, Helm and Barber. He's shown that he has the ability to play at this level, and there are very few young fast bowlers who don't suffer long periods out with injuries in the early stages of their career.

    A word too on Critchley. I sense a touch of the impatience about Chesney Hughes in some of the negative comments about him. His batting inconsistency, and particularly the casual way he sometimes gets out can be frustrating, but he's shown that he can win matches. A quick look at the 2nd division averages shows you that less successful batsmen this year include Eoin Morgan, Paul Collingwood, Sam Robson, Mark Cosgrove, Paul Stirling, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Sam Hain, Ben Duckett, Sam Billings, Luke Wright and so on. There's a fair few names in that list that we would be pleased to have joining us, so it's perhaps time to recognise what we've got already rather than lamenting that they aren't yet what we want them to be. His bowling too is showing improvement, winning us one match, making a significant contribution to winning another, and clearly being trusted more by Billy Godleman. He's taken twice as many wickets this year as in the rest of his career, and is capable of brilliant fielding. Qadri's a great prospect, but hasn't bowled particularly well this year, and clearly has a lot more learning to do. As you'd expect at his age, and as you'd expect at Critchley's too.

    We all bemoan the loss of young players, the all-too common failure of their development that Peakfan comments on, and Derbyshire's indecisiveness and delay in making decisions about their contract offers. We might also consider whether the impatience of supporters makes a contribution. In Edwin Smith's time, and much later, players of the age of Will Davis and Matt Critchley still have had several years of second XI cricket ahead of them before they got a regular first team place, where we now seem to expect to see them fully-fledged and winning matches in their late teens and early twenties. Both Davis and Critchley are highly talented cricketers, and we should be valuing them and accepting that their progress and learning is unlikely to be a seamless straight line.

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  4. Martin said
    Lets not forget that Glamorgan were largely playing a group of local players , and trying to build a team that way. I would not want to criticise them for what they are trying to achieve, as I am sure we would all like to see more Derbyshire born and bred players in our side.

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  5. I agree with notoveryet that we must support these young talents. We cannot keep coaching the youngsters in their early years and loosing faith with them then signing has-beens that are no better than the youngsters we have had and do not have age to improve on their side. Three years ago we had the philosophy to pick up youngsters and bring them through a system, our 2ndIX was full of 18-21's Slater, cotton, hosien, Hughes, critchley, etc. all who consistently played for the 2's with occasional 1st team games, now we seem to have gone away from this with a 2nd XI that looks to change week to week. I have no problem with Andersson and Lace as youngsters, and would like to keep them, but let's try and use the 2nds as a feeder for our 1st team, rather than bring in 'experience', we have experience in our team, billy, WM, AP, GW, even Hughes has been around, who has come through from 2's in last 2 years?

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