Tonkers galore...

Loots Bosman's assault on the Yorkshire bowling at Headingley on Thursday evening has been rightly lauded by eye witnesses on the club site. If that standard continues, fans are in for a rich summer of entertainment.

To be fair, the county haven't an especially long history of big hitters. Counties like Somerset can cite such luminaries as Arthur Wellard and Harold Gimblett in their past, whereas Derbyshire's batsmen, perhaps because of the nature of the wickets in the county, have tended to be more functional than flashy.

Before the Second World War, Les Townsend and George Pope were probably the two best hitters in the side, the former being especially fond of hitting the bowlers back over their head, whereas George favoured the mid wicket area. After the war, Pat Vaulkhard, who played all too infrequently, could hit the ball cleanly, as did Arnold Hamer, though Hamer was not a prolific hitter of sixes.

On occasion every batsman has his day, of course. I remember watching David Smith, a dour and dogged left hander for most of his career, taking Derek Shackleton apart at Ilkeston in 1970, clumping him over mid wicket time after time, a feat all the more noteworthy because:

A) It was Shackleton, who very rarely got hit by anyone and
B) Because Smith rarely played an attacking stroke if a defensive one would do.

Most of the Derbyshire batsmen of my early experience were what my Dad calls "nudge and fudgers," at least until Chris Wilkins arrived in 1970. Their runs were normally acquired with glances, glides and dabs, rather than with full-blooded strokeplay - we could call them accumulators.

I've written about Wilkins before and at length, but the South African, though not a classic batsman, gave the ball a real hit. In 1970 he was close to the season's six-hitting prize, run by a Sunday newspaper and offered great entertainment in his three years at the club. I saw him hit one out of the ground at Buxton, and into the boating lake at Chesterfield on the full. Although he became more restrained as the years passed, books and newspapers were put down and trips to the toilet were postponed when he walked to the wicket. If the first ball was in his arc it would go back over the bowler's head and while he could be undone by movement, there were enough good days to make him memorable. Like Bosman, he arrived as an opening batsman but struggled until moved down to number four, where he played a number of punishing innings, punctuated with what are now called "maximums."

Since then we have had far more attacking batsmen, many of them from overseas, though few were especially known for their six-hitting prowess. Mohammad Azharuddin hit quite a few in Sunday League matches, though my abiding memory of Azha was his wristy strength off his legs and with the cut. Peter Kirsten also hit a few, but was again more a conventional stroke player than a hitter. Shahid Afridi could also hit, but his good days for Derbyshire had the frequency of June snow at Buxton...

For me, the only genuine contender to Wilkins and Bosman as a hitter was, as David Griffin mentions on the club site, Adrian Kuiper. Kuiper was a far from classic batsman and was not in the same league as people like Dean Jones, John Wright or even Lawrence Rowe, but he could really hit a cricket ball.

Sadly, Wilkins and Kuiper never played twenty over cricket, a format for which they would have been well-suited. Both were good fielders, both bowled useful, if not outstanding medium pace, but both gave anything that was in their half of the wicket a fearful whack. I would have them in my fantasy Derbyshire T20 side without a second thought.

However, I am prepared to concede that, for a destructive hitter, Bosman has to take some beating. His first class record is modest - Bosman is one of only a handful of players who have a better T20 record than first class - but his style is eminently well suited to the format and John Morris has done very well to bring such a crowd-puller to the County Ground.

Enjoy him, while it lasts.