Northamptonshire v Derbyshire day 4

What a fantastic effort that was today.

Though we eventually fell short by one wicket, which may for some people have brought back memories of last year, I'm pleased to see such comments haven't made the boards tonight. Quite frankly I never thought we'd play today from the forecast and I had little expectation of getting so close to a dramatic win.

Had the game run its course we would, of course, have skinned them. The loss of almost two sessions yesterday was crucial, but this cannot detract from another admirable performance. Derbyshire fans can rightly be proud of the side's performances in the Championship thus far and we have nothing to fear in this division. Sussex may well go on to win the title, but they've not come up against us yet...

Again there were valuable contributions from Greg Smith and Robin Peterson, sharing wickets and bowling with good control. It is great to see Derbyshire with two good spinners and our seamers are all doing a good job. The side is much improved on last year and I only hope that we can translate this excellent form into the one day arena.

While there's an idiot on the Northamptonshire boards on 606 who keeps bringing up the Essex game last season, even some of their fans accept that they were outplayed over the last four days and were very lucky to get out of this one.

Hard to do otherwise really...