Monday Musings

With three defeats from the first four matches, the CB 40 would appear to offer little prospect of success for Derbyshire this season, although the games have offered encouragement with generally improved performances.

Only yesterday, against Yorkshire, did we take a real hiding and the absence of Wayne Madsen and Robin Peterson through a groin strain and influenza respectively was a contributory factor. Nor should we forget that Graham Wagg is still missing and the loss of three such players would debilitate any side.

The one day games have given grounds for optimism. The arrival of Chesney Hughes as a player of rich potential is good news, although we will have to accept that a young player with a fresh approach to playing his shots will have his good days and bad. I was pleased to see him bowling yesterday and he let no one down, though whether he becomes a genuine all rounder or a batsman who bowls is something we will find out in due course. He is a useful option, something we seem to have in abundance.

Also encouraging this season has been the return to form of Jake Needham. Whether this is down to winter work or the arrival of Robin Peterson I don't know, but Needham has always looked a bowler of promise and has a number of good returns for a young player. The apprenticeship for a spin bowler is a long one and Needham is doing OK when one considers his peak is probably 4-5 years away. He is an asset in the field and could improve further as a batsman. Derbyshire need him to develop, as Robin Peterson can only be considered a short term (though excellent) signing. Unless the regulations change again, or he earns an international recall, it is unlikely that he would fulfil the playing permit requirements for next season.

This is something that fans will need to appreciate in our Championship campaign, where we are sitting pretty at the moment. If we sustained our challenge and gained promotion to Division One at the end of it, the likelihood is that Chris Rogers and Robin Peterson will have had a major impact. Yet neither, as things stand, would be around for 2011, which would be a huge hole for John Morris to fill. Players of their ability, availability and commitment are in short supply in the world game and that, for me, is the big question mark at the moment.

Of course, we need to get there first and this time tomorrow we'll know more about the immediate prospects in this game.

Elsewhere, it would appear that someone at the Daily Telegraph decided that Steve James' broadside at Derbyshire and Northamptonshire on Saturday was uncalled for, as I wrote later that day. The article was pulled from their web site, possibly the result of responses from understandably angry fans. There is considerable unease around the game at present, between crass suggestions to "improve" the game and counties making surreptitious contact with Lalit Modi. Add in those with international grounds to fund, who want to stage their own elite competition and one can understand the edginess. The representatives of the smaller counties who attend the ECB meetings may soon sit facing the door, a position favoured by gangsters who want to ensure no one sneaks up on them…

With such concerns around, journalists like Steve James should not use their privileged position in a national newspaper of wide distribution and reputation (some of it deserved...) to settle their private agendas. I will always express an opinion on this blog, but I try to be even-handed in doing so and aim to avoid rants wherever possible, something that he declined to do at the weekend.

Finally tonight, I was impressed by England against South Africa on Saturday, with a purposeful approach that brought a positive result. Once again a key role was played by the spinners, as it was throughout the recent IPL. I look forward to our T20 campaign and an attack of Needham, Hughes, Peterson, Smith and Wagg, the latter two bowling in their slow styles…

I was impressed by the death bowling of Charl Langeveldt, who got a little stick earlier but showed how a clever seam bowler can drop it into the blockhole and make life difficult for batsmen. He may have lost a little pace, but he is still a canny customer, as vouched for by his excellent figures today.

Yet South Africa still managed to lose and for a side with so many players of genuine world class ability, their failure to translate talent into trophies is hard to understand. Part of the issue is that they do not seem to know their best side and how they can play a twenty over competition without Loots Bosman, probably the most dangerous hitter in the side apart from Morkel, is beyond me.

Mind you, so is how Robin Peterson is overlooked and Van der Merwe gets in the side. Whether Peterson is world class is perhaps a matter for debate, but he is a very good cricketer, as we are seeing at Derbyshire, and far better in every discipline than his rival.

Very strange...