Monday musings

In the words of the old song, what a difference a day makes. After Horsham, when we were all wailing and gnashing our teeth (nice biblical reference eh?) Colchester was light years apart and the sort of cricket that this Derbyshire side is capable of.

For me, that is the biggest frustration with the team - you don’t know which one will turn up. If you take the T20 as a microcosm of the season, we were good enough to beat Lancashire home and away and Yorkshire at Headingley. We took Warwickshire to the last over twice and would have beaten Durham at Derby but for rain. They are all big clubs with big budget players, yet ours rose to the occasion and did the business. Essex are another very good one day side, but we whupped 'em...

The converse is that we lost badly to a poor Worcestershire side at New Road and blew it under pressure against Northamptonshire when the quarter-finals were there for the taking.

If I was asked the reason for our failings this year, the bottom line is that it comes down to inexperience and injury. Redfern, Borrington, Madsen and Park are all effectively in only their second seasons and have had their struggles, though Madsen has managed four centuries in the Championship and has looked good in the one-day game. All are good enough to come back strong next year, though it would be asking a lot of Chesney Hughes to replicate this season’s heroics in what may be a more difficult second year.

The main issue, however, has been injuries to bowlers. John Morris’ big plan this season was bowler rotation, ensuring in doing so that he had fit and firing seam bowlers in August and September. Sadly, Jonathan Clare, Graham Wagg and Ian Hunter have only rotated on the physios table for the most part. Tom Lungley had his moments in early season before becoming the broken arm victim of a Jones straight drive and Mark Footitt has also had a couple of injuries.

Fortunately Tim Groenewald has been able to soldier on, while Steffan Jones, lacking any bowlers to coach, has done what he has always done for Derbyshire. It was evident at Chesterfield a couple of weeks back that both are now running on empty and reasons for our failure to bowl sides out in the Championship are not hard to find.

Tomorrow is our final TV appearance of the season when we entertain Middlesex. A good result could see us leapfrog them in the table and would see the luuurve spread still further around the County Ground. It would be nice to see us put on a show for the cameras but I’m wary of saying with confidence that we will at this stage.

What is becoming increasingly evident, however, is that we may have found our wicket-keeper. Today’s reports suggest that Steve Adshead took a good catch standing up to Greg Smith and a blinder standing back off Markl Footitt. He also added a stumping and must be in John Morris’ thoughts for next year, especially given a first-class batting average over thirty.

We’ve missed that this year. The Pipe/Wagg/Clare contribution at 7-9 in the order has been a big loss, though Jones and Groenewald have battled hard with the willow to compensate in some way.

Speaking of signings, I hope that John Morris has the number of Surrey outcast Laurie Evans, surprisingly released at the club. He can play and in the right environment could prosper. Sadly, I suspect he may wish to stay down south, but he's the right age to improve and would be a very useful asset.

Until the next time...