My thoughts on T20 - Mark Allen

One of the perks of being a blog sponsor is being able, if you wish, to submit a guest post. It is my pleasure to publish this one from Mark Allen, better known as 'Claycross Mark'.

Please do get in touch if you would like to publish your thoughts on an occasional basis!

Hi Peakfan 

First of all, congratulations on reaching 2.5million views: a fantastic achievement for a brilliant blog. I am delighted to contribute in a small way, and would urge as many readers to help financially in anyway they can via your donate button.

A great win for Derbyshire on Thursday and  fine bowling performance against Nottinghamshire too. As ever, I want to be positive and I think we can have a good end of season and I hope recent results set us up.

I do think we have been unlucky this year with injuries and the situation with our overseas players. Perhaps Stanlake was a risk, but to be fair to the club, remember we originally signed Abbott last year. As for McDermott, I honestly believe he would have been a game changer for us in the Blast. I also think Van Beek has done a fine job at short notice. Signing overseas players, with all their international and T20 commitments, is not that easy these days.

I believe the club is very well run with Chairman Ian Morgan and CEO Ryan Duckett at the helm and I think this bodes well for the future. I also think some of the signings have been excellent recently too, including Scrimshaw, Aitcheson and FHP. I like McKerr too, but he may or may not be available on a permanent deal. I can understand the reactions to the omission of Wood, but let us hope he makes the most of his chances going forward. Also well done to the coaching team on promoting Came and McKiernan, who have shown what they can do with limited opportunities.

Going forward, I think the signing of our overseas players next year is going to be crucial. One only needs to look at Simon Harmer at Essex and Marnus  Labuschagne at Glamorgan for the positive impact they can have. 

One of my all-time favourite cricketers is Michael Holding, but I think Derbyshire are always stronger with an overseas batsman; Wright, Kirsten, Jones, Rogers and Di Venuto all did really well for us. 

I have high hopes of our current crop of fast bowlers, Cohen, Melton, Conners, FHP, Aitchison, Scrimshaw (I hope we can extend his contract) and of course Reece (but would prefer him to bat at 5) and I would like to see us sign McKerr, if we could afford him and he would come. So at least one overseas batsman would be my choice for next year.

So let us all support the team for the rest of the season and hope we can win the RLODC!

Good luck with the sponsorships, PF! 

Clay Cross Mark