Tony Palladino comes into the Derbyshire squad for tomorrow's game at Leicester.
He replaces Ravi Rampaul, who is still unwell and my guess would be that he will be one change to the side, replacing Mark Watt in the eleven that lost to Nottinghamshire.
He had a bowl today for the second eleven and will benefit from that spell.
Logan van Beek has family commitments and so there may be an opportunity for Sam Conners to make a first team List A debut, which as you will read later, will be well deserved.
Our hosts won their last game and we will need to be at our best to come out on top. South African Colin Ackermann is in fine form, while Mark Cosgrove has been a regular thorn in Derbyshire sides over the years.
Tom Taylor has made an astonishing start to his Foxes career with both bat and ball, getting back to the bowler we once had high hopes for at Derby. Will Davis has been less spectacular, but both players will have points to prove tomorrow, just as Ben Slater had on Monday.
If we turn up at our best, we will win, because there is plenty of talent in this side. Any drop in intensity and the home side are well placed to take advantage.
In closing tonight, there was a fine win for the second team against Lancashire, or in keeping with the local way, Daryn Smit's Second Eleven...
The home side was bowled out for 216, with Steven Parry making top score of 86, while there were three wickets for Sam Conners.
Only Tom Wood (34) made any runs in the top order, but Conners hit 6 sixes in his 51, Hamidullah Qadri made an unbeaten 19, and in company with Smit (36*) steered us home by two wickets.
Smit is doing a fine job with the second team, which is so far unbeaten. Given it is largely made up of youngsters and trialists, that is very impressive.
I will be back tomorrow, with my thoughts on the game at Leicester.
Bit of a bogey county are Leicestershire especially in the one day format. Like you say Peakfan they've got some very big hitters in that line up, Ackermann is top drawer and can take a game away from any county in a flash.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but another defeat coming here.
Looking back on our last two games in the Royal London, there were lengthy periods when we needed someone to really attack the bowling. In these games a few sixes go a long way to bump up the score to a total that gives the bowlers a chance. I'm looking forward to seeing Alfie again. He looked very lively against Notts.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with you, Steve, that Billy Godleman needs to sieze the opportunity to more to get runs when there are so few wickets down. On the one hand, you can't fault him in his last two knocks in the Royal London, but his innings against Northants was really ground out, and the one against Notts, while much more fluent, failed to gather momentum when needed, to get those extra runs.
ReplyDeleteI have been very critical of Billy in the past but for not getting any runs. Not when he’s our top scorer. You can still have an anchor man that others play around . The problem is really that we don’t have any explosive batsman in our middle order or team in general . Mads can score quickly but even he isn’t what you’d call explosive . Crich is probably our best striker of s cricket ball but that’s it. It will always be hard to go much bigger than 300 with our team as it stands. On the positive 300 is always a competitive score especially against the lesser teams
ReplyDeleteChaddesden Jim
Agree to some extent Jim, but the same was said about Boycott. Billy brings a lot to the side and having someone bat through is important. But so too scoring runs and if they aren't coming from the established bat, those coming in are going to find it even more tough
DeleteHi Peakfan
ReplyDeleteDad went today and Sunday and in 80 years watching says he has never seen an opening bat score two back to back centuries and be responsible for nearly losing both games
great to win though Derbyshire lalala
John