Surrey v Derbyshire day 3

There's only one word to describe Chris Rogers recent run of form for Derbyshire.

Extraordinary.

Aside from the fact that he is one run away from being the first Derbyshire batsman EVER - in 140 years - to score a double century and century in a match, Rogers in his last four Championship matches has turned in an astonishing array of scores:

208 v Kent
25 and 112 not out v Middlesex
222 and 42 v Essex
200 and 99 not out v Surrey

That's 908 runs in seven innings...

With Derbyshire 260 ahead going into the final day, the chances are that the first hour tomorrow will see a push for another hundred or so runs in 20 overs, leaving Surrey perhaps 360-380 to win. With the wicket apparently showing signs of variable bounce and a little more turn, that is likely to be something that will interest Robin Peterson. He will have benefited from a long bowl in the first innings, where he took three wickets and bowled with the control we have lacked from a spinner for a long time.

The sensible money is probably still on the draw in this game. I would be astonished if Surrey could be bowled out on their own track inside 75 overs, but one would hope Derbyshire would bowl better than they did in a similar position against Essex in the final game of last season.
I was pleased today to see Mark Footitt take the wicket of Mark Ramprakash, adding it to that of Marcus Trescothick he took in a pre-season friendly. Good scalps both of them and Footitt promises to be a good asset.

So too does Greg Smith, who added four wickets to his 66 runs and may bowl off spin tomorrow if conditions suit, especially bearing in mind how he did so well with it at Uxbridge near the end of the last campaign.

Of course, Rogers heroics shouldn't mask the fact that, Smith apart, the rest of the Derbyshire batting hasn't really fired in this game. On an early season track with substantial movement at times, run scoring can be difficult, but Derbyshire are very much in control of the game at the end of day three. We shouldn't lose from here, but whether we can force a win is another matter altogether.

In closing tonight I'm going to be the first person to make an observation about Chris Rogers, or Captain Fantastic as we should now be calling him. This season's fixtures see seven County Championship matches scheduled to be completed before the end of May - the most in a long time. Given that he currently has 299 runs in two innings, it is not being silly to suggest that Rogers has an outside chance of being only the seventh man in history to score a thousand runs by the end of May.

Tom Hayward did it in 1900, Bradman in 1930 and 1938, Bill Edrich in 1938, Glen Turner in 1973 and Graeme Hick in 1988. Could Rogers score another 700 runs in 12 innings? I don't know, given the vagaries of early season tracks, the thinking money would be against it.

Then again, in his current form I'd be interested in seeing the odds.

And that would be sure to make a stir back home in Australia.

Chris Rogers, the Derbyshire Bradman. Nice ring to it, eh?