Derbyshire v Sussex day 2

This has been a funny old game, with the top orders of both sides doing poorly before a late middle order resurrection.

Sussex will have been delighted to reach 429 from 126-6, especially when Yasir Arafat quickly removed Wayne Madsen, who is haveing his struggles at present. Chris Rogers and Garry Park then added 96 before both of them and Greg Smith were dismissed by the time Derbyshire had reached 127.

At that point we could have collapsed and been facing the follow on, but young tyros Chesney Hughes and Dan Redfern came together in a satisfying stand of 98 before both were dismissed before the close. Hughes just continued the golden form he has shown since his elevation to the first team, but Redfern had a welcome return to form and it was refreshing to see these two young players doing well.

The first task tomorrow is to get to 280 and avoid the follow on, then push on to a total close to that made by the visitors. I'll be counting no chickens at this stage and we have a lot of work to do before we reach parity in this one.

In closing tonight, thanks to Alan (comments, yesterday) for pointing out that the large number of byes was primarily down to some wild bowling from Mark Footitt. The left armer has good wicket taking ability, but will need to work hard on his direction so that the batsmen have to play more of the time. While his erratic line keeps batsmen guessing, it also gives away runs we can ill afford and I look forward to him retaining his ability to take wickets while maintaining a more Derbyshire frugality in doing so.