The way that Wayne Madsen and Usman Khawaja were batting at tea today, they could both have been lining up centuries in each innings by the end of the dayThey could yet get there, but rain has taken a lot out of this game and there must surely be a contrived finish to get any positive result. Kent's long and fairly illustrious batting line-up eased them past the follow on but Derbyshire's bowlers stuck to their task well and by the day end there was a useful lead of 185.
If the weather allows it, Derbyshire will be wanting to set something like 340-350 in around seventy overs tomorrow. To win they must, of course risk defeat and Luke Sutton will be wary of their stuttering batting suddenly firing on all cylinders. 150 in around 30 overs is do-able and then it will be game on, if both skippers are willing to make a game of it.
In other news today, Tim Groenewald is going to speak to other counties, which is his right as he nears the end of a contract. He says, encouragingly, that he wants to stay and much will depend on how realistic his demands are. I would hope that we can retain a man who is a very good cricketer, but the club has a limited budget and, as we saw with Graham Wagg and may do with Greg Smith, it can only stretch so far.
Welcome Martin - and good luck!
Tempting fate of course by saying this, but by my count this is the seventh successive day of championship cricket in which Derbyshire have been on top or at least all square (I'm not going to count the last day of Leicestershire which was a bad day rescued by some heroics at the end). It was, above all, the wild inconsistency from day to day, session to session, and even hour to hour, over a protracted period that said to me that the team weren't progressing. We're not winning yet, and it's early days, but if consistency on the field reflects stability and consistency off it, then our new management team is doing the job.
ReplyDeleteAgreed mate. Well put!
ReplyDeleteAnother Derbyshire day at Canterbury , how come the rain never seems to come when we are 90/8 with a lead of 6,but always when we appear to be in the ascendency ?
ReplyDeleteDonny Scorpion