Worcestershire 243-7 (Fell 69, Wessels 60, Critchley 3-56)
Derbyshire lead by 147 runs
Derbyshire, largely thanks to Harvey Hosein, stretched their first innings to 390 this morning. Ben Aitchison lent valuable support and Billy Godleman will have been delighted with such a total after being asked to bat first.
Then Sam Conners, as he is developing a nice habit of doing, removed Jake Libby with his second ball, the batsman's first.
It was harder after that, as first Fell and then Rikki Wessels played good knocks, but Matt Critchley followed his century yesterday with a high-class spell of spin bowling. The ball to remove Wessels, a regular thorn in Derbyshire sides over the years, was a beautiful googly and he can be well pleased with another top effort.
Sam Conners took two wickets and the attack as a whole bowled with discipline. I thought Billy Godleman handled his attack well too, rotating and changing the bowlers regularly and not letting the batting side settle.
It was a good day, but chances of victory are linked to removing the last three fairly quickly tomorrow morning. Luis Reece's late removal of Ben Cox, who played on, was a big moment.
Meanwhile at Northampton, Alex Hughes made a superb unbeaten 231 as our seconds batted most of the last day to draw with the home side.
The declared total was 535-3, with Tom Wood making 138 and South African trialist Justin Broad making 120.
Logic suggests Hughes will be back in the side for the next game after his marathon knock, which lasted seven and a quarter hours.
Top work!
Watching the game today and the spell of Matt Critchley is the perfect example to show those who don’t know why counties like Derbyshire exist. It reminded me of Scott Borthwick who played test cricket for England as a leg spinner and was Graeme Swann’s tip for his replacement who has effectively become a batsman who bowls occassionally, albeit he is bowling more this season now he is captain back at Durham.
ReplyDeleteI couldn’t help thinking that some of his expensive spells early in his career how many counties would have given up on his bowling and possibly his career.
With a second innings still to come, it's premature to speculate (but I will 😄). If Hughes were to come into the side whereabouts would he fit in? Would the pack need to be shuffled to get him up the order perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThere may be a singular place up for grabs, or there may be not. If everyone is treated equally there may be more than one, or moght one say that whatever happened at the featherbed of Northampton, where a granny from Yorkshire armed with a stick of rhubarb moght have done quite well too,it moght be better for all to be judged after a month, not after a week?