Middlesex v Derbyshire Day One

In an era of biff bang cricket, where an over's not an over without at least one boundary, there was something quite refreshing - for me anyway - about Derbyshire's batting before lunch at Lords today.

Not having seen the track, I can only assume that Chris Rogers feels that it will deteriorate as the match goes on, as it seemed to be hard work for the batsmen. Rogers left early, after a couple of boundaries, but from then on Wayne Madsen and Paul Borrington got their heads down to take us through to 63-1 at lunch.

To see two relatively inexperienced batsmen willing and able to do that was very pleasing. That Madsen only had a single to his name in the first hour spoke volumes, but a normally free-flowing batsman was able to subsume his normal game to the benefit of the team. Meanwhile Borrington, fresh from a century for Ticknall on Saturday, did what we all know he can do and grafted. If you were compiling a list of free-flowing Derbyshire batsmen, Bozza's name might not be up there in the top three. If, however, you did a similar list of players who sell their wicket dearly, there would not be too many ahead of him.

I've seen a few young players over the years whose greatest merit seemed to be a brisk twenty, followed by giving away their wicket and the rest of the day in the pavilion. For me, Borrington's style is reminiscent of the young Glenn Turner, who first came to Worcestershire from New Zealand and barely got the ball off the square in his first season. Paul has more shots than Turner had at that stage, but is selective of how and when to play them at this formative stage of his career when he is establishing himself in the county game.

While it is nice to have a cavalier number three, it is even better to have someone who you know will have to be prised out, especially when that person potentially has years of good service to offer the county. Over the coming seasons I am sure that Borrington will unveil an increasing array of strokes, but if he continues to bat as if his life depended on it he will do me.

As for the game, one of two things happened today.

Either it was a very good toss to win, as the conditions favoured the bowlers and will only deteriorate further, or Chris Rogers completely mis-read the wicket and should perhaps have decided to bowl first.

We will undoubtedly find out which of these is correct in the days ahead, but we are closing in on 200 which is around par for Lords this season. We have the bowlers to do exactly the same to them, even allowing for the presence of England men Strauss and Shah in their lineup.

There was another good effort from Chesney Hughes, brought in as a late replacement for the flu-hit Robin Peterson and this time tomorrow we will have a better idea as to where the points in this game might go.