Derbyshire v Gloucestershire day one

If there is a grandstand up in the clouds where former cricketers sit to watch matches of interest, I would reckon that Cliff Gladwin and Les Jackson would have front row seats in deference to their feats on the cricket field for Derbyshire.

By the same token, they quite possibly decided to go for a few pints after the profligacy of Derbyshire's bowling in today's game. To some extent I can excuse Atif Sheikh, who was undoubtedly excited to make his debut and had his share of nerves, but Tom Lungley's opening spell was a shocker. It's just a good job that Craig Spearman has retired or goodness knows what they'd have been on after the first ten overs. No one, not even their own mothers, would call Batty and Snell dashers...

27 extras in the first eight overs, 39 by lunch on the first day and 76 in the innings. Irrespective of anything else, that was embarrasingly bad and may well be the difference between winning and losing the match.

I'm reminded of a story of Cliff Gladwin when, coming off one day, he was asked his figures.
"5-37," he replied. "It would have been 5-36 if that (blank) had kept his legs together." On such parsimony are legends made, but we gave too many cheap runs today.

Congratulations to Sheikh on his debut and wickets. He clearly has considerable raw talent and potential, but needs to work on his accuracy and undoubtedly on his run up before being considered even close to the finished article. To think there has been criticism of Footitt's radar…today's goings on made him seem like Mike Hendrick.

As for Lungley, he came back well in the afternoon, but however you look at it, we've given Gloucestershire 50-60 runs more than should normally be the case and I would not expect such generosity from Kirby, Franklin, Hussain and Lewis.

To be fair (and I always try to be) Derbyshire pulled back the horror start well, thanks to controlled spells by Tim Groenewald, Greg Smith and Robin Peterson. In the afternoon session Gidman, so often a thorn in our side, and Batty were both dismissed earlier than seemed likely, while Smith returned to the bowling form in which he started the season and Peterson - well, he was just Peterson. Admirably accurate and once again the man to mop up the tail end of the innings. If we had one more bowler in his class we would walk this division.

Once again the skipper held things together when we replied and we need a biggie from him and support from the three youngsters (Hughes, Redfern and Poynton) who will join him (hopefully) at the crease tomorrow.

One area of concern came to me from texts and e mails today. Apparently a number of the new seats in the stand could not be used because of the sightscreen. While fully appreciative of the new facilities, it seems strange that the siting of it was such as to make so many seats redundant. A view from behind the bowlers arm is one thing, but it seems strange that many of the seats will be unusable, depending on who is bowling. My rudimentary grasp of economics suggests that seats installed and paid for, minus seats you can't use = a loss. Could they have been installed in a different location? Just asking…

On the up side, there can have been few occasions when Derbyshire have fielded a younger side in a first class match. With Sheikh and Hughes just 19 and Redfern and Poynton 20, surely even the habitual moaners might concede we are doing our bit for English cricket? There were four slip catches for Chesney too, an impressive haul.

Let's just hope that any records we set in the remainder of this game are for the right reasons. I'll close with what could have been a headline and reflects a day's cricket where a young bowler made a decent impression. Fans around the country, however, will look at the extras tally with a degree of amusement.

Sheikh rattles, then LOL...