Morris still the man

I received an e mail last night that suggested I might be growing impatient with John Morris at the helm of Derbyshire cricket after recent displays.

To be honest, I'm not. I am frustrated at the inconsistency of the side, but that is one of the drawbacks in playing young and/or inexperienced cricketers. If you look at the side that took the field yesterday, besides the four lads aged 20 or under, we had players like Madsen, Park and Groenewald who are all in effectively their second first class season. Only Rogers, Peterson, Smith and Lungley could be deemed experienced players. That was part of my frustration with Lungley. In such times we need the old heads to stand up and be counted. While he did that latterly yesterday, his first spell was poor by any standards.

Charles Collins of Radio Derby has done a piece worth reading on 606, an oasis of common sense in the desert of drivel that is more often on that site. To be honest, I've not been on it for three or four weeks as it is usually full of wind up merchants trying to score points and is laughably moderated. Some of the stuff that is allowed on there is borderline libelous, which is a shame for the ones who would like to have constructive debate. In Morris We Trust is the place to go and is a regular stopping place for me.

Collins makes some very good points about Morris and the current situation. There is little doubt that our limited resources make wholesale improvements at the speed demanded by some supporters impossible. His planned rotation of seam bowlers has been blown out of the water by injuries to many of them, with only Groenewald, Footitt and Lungley currently fully fit. Jones, Hunter, Wagg and Clare are all injured and Sheikh was called up from the Seconds ahead of schedule.

As I said yesterday, Sheikh has great potential, but my understanding is that he has had persistent no ball problems all season, something that needs to be sorted before he plays regular first team cricket. I can only assume that Footitt has a niggle too when Sheikh, with such obvious problems, got the nod ahead of him.

Nonetheless, Morris still gets my vote in his current role. If we were to make a knee jerk reaction and bring in someone else, I cannot see that there would be an immediate improvement as there would be the same budgetary restrictions, the same inexperience and the same injuries. Having thought about it on my daily commutes, I can only come up with two people who would be affordable and might do a decent job for us. I'll not name them, as it wouldn't be fair and is a hypothetical issue anyway.

A few people have suggested to me that we bring in experienced players, but from where? Experienced players want appropriate remuneration and without a rich benefactor to pay for it all, a quick revolution is not going to happen.

Derby County, in my humble opinion, have gone the right way about things. Bring in a young manager, tell him that the job is a long-term plan and make sure that everyone knows this. Like the football club, we have a man who is Derbyshire through and through and is as passionate in his desire to do a good job as any of us are to see it.

What we need at Derbyshire are three things - time, better luck with injuries and increased confidence. Morris cannot do anything about the first two, but his motivational and man management skills will be tested by a paper thin squad. It goes without saying that a confident player will do better, but confidence comes from good performances, fitness and a winning mentality.

In players like Chris Rogers and Robin Peterson, Morris has recruited two admirable role models for the young players to work with and emulate. We can only hope that their influence rubs off on their young colleagues and Derbyshire can emerge from the current flat spell sooner, rather than later.