By early afternoon this looked like a good toss to have lost, as we had Sussex in serious trouble at 126-6.
Yet last night's identified danger men, Robin Martin Jenkins and Murray Goodwin took them into a position of some strength at the close, adding 225 for the seventh wicket in a magnificent stand.
They were aided by some average fielding, with several catches going down and a couple of stumping chances being missed. I'm again concerned by 48 extras, 22 of them byes, though whether that is more of a comment on erratic bowling or an off day by Tom Poynton I couldn't say.
One would assume that we will be batting some time before lunch tomorrow, and will need to show the same fighting spirit that two excellent servants of Sussex cricket did today. Martin-Jankins retires next month and has been an outstanding servant to the club, while Goodwin, once a target of David Houghton when he was at the club, has been one of the best imports of the last ten years.
Work to do tomorrow lads.
Just a word about the extras - I actually thought that young Tom Poynton 'kept' rather well today. It wasn't until towards the end of a long, hot, tiring day that he appeared to fumble a few. My personal perception was that most of the extras conceded came as a result of less than accurate bowling.
ReplyDeleteIt would be quite interesting if there was a statistic that showed the extras conceded against each bowler. Whilst he certainly is quick, Mark Footitt certainly tends to spray it around a bit! Having said that, the lad took a couple of wickets today and on the face of it returned decent figures - but it would be interesting to see how much different the figures would be if the byes conceded off his bowling were added in. On a number of occasions Poynton would have had to have arms longer than 'Twizzle' to have stopped them, even after a very athletic full-length dive.
I thought that the Derbyshire supporters were typically generous in their applause today for the fantastic innings played by Murray Goodwin, and by Robin Martin-Jenkins. They accumulated many of their runs by skilfully 'directing' the ball, rather than by making risky air shots. Well done to them! Let's hope that we can finish Sussex off quickly, and then see some of our lads go on to play the kind of innings we know them to be capable of.
Thanks Alan. Yes, its easy to attribute the byes to the wicket keeper, which is why I was loathe to do so.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clearing it up! We now need our guys to bat like theirs did.