Monday musings...

There is little point in getting unduly concerned about yesterday's loss to Leicestershire, disappointing as it was.

These things happen to the best of teams. Ask Arsenal and Chelsea, two of the best football sides in the country, after their surprise weekend losses. The best cricket team in the country over recent seasons, Durham, have had a sluggish start, but only a fool would write them off at this stage.

Just the same goes for Derbyshire. As I wrote the other day, I don't see us as being world-beaters yet and perhaps not as good as our display at the Oval, against a side that already looks to be struggling, suggested. Surrey were well beaten again by Sussex yesterday and if the press stories of dressing room discord are anything to go by, we shouldn't expect them to be too big a threat in Division Two.

Leicestershire could be. They have yet to see their Australian professional, Andrew McDonald, but have won two matches and are deservedly top of the pile. Much will depend on Matthew Hoggard staying fit and whether young seamer Nathan Buck can maintain an impressive start to the season. Claude Henderson has also had an inspired first couple of games, but the Leicestershire side does not look as good as ours on paper. Mind you, they did it where it mattered over the last four days.

Where they won was in getting contributions down the order from their batsmen. After Robin Peterson's burst with the ball on the third afternoon, Derbyshire were almost through and potentially chasing less than three hundred to win with all the time to do so. Wayne White took the game away from us with a maiden century that seemed unlikely in his time at the County Ground. Fair play to the lad, he has improved considerably since his move across the East Midlands.

Our biggest concern is that our batting thus far has been heavily dependent on one man. Rogers dominated at the Oval, Madsen played a fine hand yesterday. While Greg Smith and Robin Peterson have looked good and Paul Borrington battled hard yesterday, we need more contributions. I'm sure they're all aware of this anyway - rocket science it most assuredly isn't…

There have been a number of positives in the brief season so far. Rogers, Madsen, Smith and Peterson have their runs, Groenewald has bowled steadily and Peterson looks a class apart from our spinners of recent vintage. It must be great for Chris Rogers to be able to toss the ball to a bowler who he can be confident will take wickets or keep things tight.

At this stage we must all judge Derbyshire in terms of progress made. Despite the reversal yesterday, we continue to move in the right direction with encouraging contributions from the close season signings. Any more comment than that needs to wait until we've played a lot more cricket.

There's no news yet on Derbyshire's side for Wednesday against Glamorgan, but I'm sure we all hope for the return of Graham Wagg, a talisman if there ever was one. Hopefully his injury has responded well.

More on that one tomorrow, but Robert Croft is in the twelve and I would be astonished if he was omitted after his record against us.

Still, we've got RP this year!