Northamptonshire v Derbyshire preview

Derbyshire have added Jake Needham and Mark Footitt to the side that played at Leek on Monday for tomorrow night's televised encounter with Northamptonshire at Wantage Road.

As regular readers will know by now, I like my music and if I'd to choose a song that was apposite for our one day fortunes this season, it would probably be "Its Not How You Start, Its How You Finish." There have been a few times over the years when Derbyshire have got off to a flyer,only to fizzle out long before the start of July. I think we're a little bit away from being as good a one day side as we are in the four day game, but working at it will improve our fortunes.

I think Mark Footitt is a good spearhead for four day cricket, though his tendency for some erratic stuff makes him less of an automatic choice in the one day game. He bowled a lot of wides in the recent Second Eleven game, but this can happen with young quick bowlers at times. In his favour for this fixture is the way that he twice despatched Rob White, a real danger man who scores quickly, in the Championship game last month. Conversely, Needham may get more one day games and could feasibly replace one of the seamers from the Leek. He rarely gets hammered around the park and a partnership with Robin Peterson could reap dividends, depending on the state of the pitch.

The home side have named the following side for the game:

S.D Peters
N.J O'Brien
M.B Loye
D.J Sales
R.A White
N. Boje
A.J Hall
J.D Middlebrook
D.S Lucas
L.M Daggett
J.A Brooks

It promises to be great entertainment and here's hoping for a Derbyshire win to get us up and running.

In other news, it has been a disappointing World 20 over competition for Loots Bosman so far, but I will thank him for my early night last night. I was all set to stay up and watch him against Afghanistan when he was run out for a duck. Given that in normal circumstances the fixture would have had all the appeal of a twenty-four hour reality TV station for me, it was time for bed at that point. Good to see Langers getting three wickets and proving that there's life in the old dog yet.

The wickets in the Caribbean have been disappointing and I'm sure that the greats of the past, brought up on hard fast wickets would be saddened by the way that they do little to encourage strokeplay. Scores have generally been below par, with "dibbly dobbly" bowlers often the most effective. My gut feeling is that it will be a win for either India or Australia, with the former probably shading it with their additional IPL experience.