Glamorgan v. Derbyshire day two

Glamorgan 431 

Derbyshire 215-7 (Andersson 46, Guest 45, Jewell 34, Thomson 30* Gorvin 4-49)

Glamorgan lead by 216 runs

Last night I wrote, as I have many times over the years, that you cannot judge a pitch until both sides have batted on it.

Now we have seen that, there are several observations that can be made, with a degree of confidence. 

One is that the wrong decision was made to bowl yesterday. There was much more lateral movement today and Glamorgan's seam-heavy attack made the best of it. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, they - and in particular Andy Gorvin - bowled much better lengths and allowed the ball to zip around. Perhaps the overhead conditions were more conducive to movement, but surely that was an even greater reason to have a bat, when we won the toss yesterday under clear blue skies? 

Nor do I understand our obsession, when the tail enders come in, to start digging it in short. I am not convinced that too many players, in this day and age when there is so much protective equipment, are that bothered by it. Long gone are the days when a couple of steps towards the square leg umpire became the norm from nine, ten, jack when the quick ran in.

 All that the - and I am choosing the word carefully - naive approach from Blair Tickner seemed to do was fire up Gorvin, who was not at all discomforted by the short stuff and after the initial blow on the helmet just ducked and let it go sailing through to Brooke Guest. 

The 86 runs added with Timm van der Gugten, for the eighth wicket, were priceless in the context of the game. Without them we would now have at least avoided the follow on. After getting Ingram early, the tail wagged with far too great a vigour for Derbyshire liking, but they were undoubtedly helped along the way by the naivety. Or daftness, where I come from.

ul-Hasan, not one of the home side's front line bowlers, was also zipping it around and was helped by some ponderous footwork, while van der Gugten, one of the best day in, day out, bowlers on the circuit, had it on the proverbial piece of elastic. 

Guest and Andersson batted well, but an injudicious cut from the latter opened the gate and Dal was immediately suckered down the leg side in a clearly planned move, brilliant wicket keeping by Chris Cooke as it was. When Guest was bowled by a beautiful leg cutter from ul-Hasan, the writing was on the wall and in very large letters.

Yet even then the fight of '25 was shown by Thomson, who batted very well, and Reece, clearly inconvenienced and batting with a runner, but hanging in there. 67 more, with three wickets left, to avoid the follow on..

This has been a very encouraging start to the season by Derbyshire and we should perhaps not get too carried away by one bad day. 

But bad habits can become the norm just as easily as good ones, perhaps more so. 

The trick now is to return to things we have done well. 

Oh, and have more confidence in ourselves if we win the toss..