Leicestershire 423-9 (Budinger 81, Holland 74, Handscombe 63, van Beek 53*, Cox 49)
v Derbyshire
The pitch looked pretty good after the recent dry spell and I can only assume the hope was to make early inroads into a long home batting lineup.
It didn't work, as Sol Budinger, batting in his trademark style, played some sparkling strokes and straight away put to Derbyshire onto the back foot.
They did well - perhaps were lucky - to dismiss him before the lunch interval, but Leicestershire were scoring at a run a minute by that stage and had built a platform for a sizeable score
Derbyshire fought back well in the afternoon. and claimed three more wickets, but at no point did there appear any justification in the decision at the toss. The only thing you could say was that no one made a huge score and the bowlers, as a unit, stuck to their task pretty well.
Perhaps they hope to have a run chase on the last afternoon and feel that is the best chance of victory. If that is the case, there might have been mild concern that a couple of the wickets that fell went to deliveries that kept a little low. Perhaps Rehan Ahmed will come into the game as it progresses, but it was hard work for the bowlers for the greater part of the day.
After a loose, adjusting first spell from Blair Tickner, he bowled very well after lunch. But by the end of the day, having lost the toss, I would probably say that this was Leicestershire's day. Highlighted when Logan van Beek showed batting touch he didn't do in our colours
But of course, we never know how good a score is until both sides have batted. There should be no real demons in this pitch as it stands, for Derbyshire, sometime tomorrow
One final point - the stream this morning was pretty awful. There is a certain irony in this, for a county that was on pay per view at the end of last summer and has a CEO whose stated aim is to take the game to new audiences.
While it is hard to complain when a service is offered free, surely constant buffering and a static camera at either end is pretty poor fare.
In my opinion, anyway.
Big chance missed by putting Leicester into bat, not sure what we were thinking as it looks a batters paradise. Disappointing day today and we need to make sure we don't collapse tomorrow or it will be a fight to save this game
ReplyDeleteInteresting that three other teams did the same thing and ended up chasing leather all day. Worcester, Glamorgan and Lancs did the same - obviously some reasoning behind it but didn’t work out really for any of them
ReplyDeleteLeicestershire are going to be very hard to beat this season. They've got a batting lineup with 11 genuinely decent batters. Scriven is a very good bat indeed and it's mad that he's at 11. He's had an unfortunate time with injury or he'd have played more but I'd say is good enough to bat at 7 in many sides and suspect higher eventually if he were to shift his focus back to that suite though he's become a very fine bowler too.
ReplyDeletePlayers like he and Rishi Patel are exactly what we should aim for in the future. Young players who Leicestershire picked up from other counties whom they've helped realise that potential. Similar to Guest for us.
Putting them in certainly seems questionable however whilst their bowling is OK, I'd say it's not any better than ours so no reason we can't bat equally well.
I think we have to accept that it was a big mistake asking Leics to bat first when we won the toss. There was some debate last season about whether or not MA was involved when an obvious error was made in similar circumstances. Having said that, we can but hope that we bat well enough to save the game. With such a massive Leics total on the board already, any hope of our winning this game seem to have evaporated.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's any doubt it was their day. If you win the toss you have to bowl them out for 250 or less. To go at the runs per over we did is very disappointing.
ReplyDeleteYes, you certainly want to bowl them out for under 300. Call me old fashioned, but the number of runs conceded to third man continually irks me (and boosts the score considerably)
DeleteI thought I heard it said their was about 105 runs scored through third man yesterday 😕
DeleteAs above really. It will be interesting to see if we can battle out a draw as sadly teams seem to be losing the knack of doing that. Not enough players like sibley anymore
ReplyDeleteLet’s see how we do when it’s our turn to bat before we throw in the towel just yet. Grant from Telford
ReplyDeleteI am inclined to agree, Grant. The game progressed well yesterday, they scored runs at a good rate, but we are close to balling them out.
DeleteIf we bat as we did at Derby, the game could have an interesting final couple of days. There is enough talent in the batting to gain parity and it then becomes a battle thereafter...
**bowling. One day my phone will understand my accent. And I will proof read more closely!
DeleteUnless there’s a spectacular collapse over the next two days it looks like the forecasted rain on Monday should save Derbyshire
ReplyDeleteOn that optimistic note...
DeleteAs Gary said, we weren't the only team to put the opposition in and chase the ball around yesterday.
ReplyDeleteOn the increasingly batter friendly pitches we are seeing, putting the opposition in and hoping it does a bit early because it wont any other time has become a bit of a tactic. Then your backing your own batters to do the business, and posing the question to the team that will bat third, how adventours do you want to be setting a target?
Of course, first we have to bat well today.
To add to my previous point, Peter Handscomb revealed that had Leicestershire won the toss they also planned to field first.
ReplyDelete