After the disappointment of Friday, Derbyshire return to what has more recently been their best form of the game tomorrow, with a trip down to the 'garden of England' to play Kent.
The game sees a recall for three senior players, Wes Durston, Wayne White and Tom Poynton. With all three fully fit, it is a sensible and understandable move, as it takes some of the young lads out of the firing line.
The squad:
Billy Godleman
Ben Slater
Chesney Hughes
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Wes Durston
Scott Elstone
Shiv Thakor
Tom Poynton
Wayne White
Tony Palladino
Tom Taylor
Mark Footitt
For me, either one of the seamers or Scott Elstone drops out, the latter perhaps more likely to do so after a poor run of scores. When he gets going, Scott is a lovely batsman to watch, as well as a brilliant fielder and useful bowler. The feeling remains that he is vulnerable early, however and perhaps prone to 'go after' the ball in his quest to get going.
Three youngsters drop out but all can do so with heads held high. Ben Cotton looks much improved and has bowled delightfully in T20, while Harvey Hosein has done well behind the stumps. It is the right time to give him a breather, however. His time will come again.
Matt Critchley also drops out and the spin department is one of my two concerns at present. With Wainwright out of sorts, Knight short of bowling and Critchley light on experience, we're down to Wes and Tillakaratne for spin and later season pitches could be an issue when it starts to turn. The back supports he tightened in the match against Lancashire suggested Chesney's back is a problem, so I don't see him bowling sometime soon.
Critchley has a big future, but his bowling needs a lot of work at this level. Then again, how many finished articles do you see as spinners at that age? His batting has been excellent though and he will be back.
As someone commented last night, we are missing experience in the middle order, especially in the T20. You look at other counties and they have overseas all rounders coming in at five or six, or players of experience. The return of Durston will help, but we don't look like we have middle/lower order runs a-plenty at this stage. Mind you, a few in the middle of the bat works wonders for a player, just like a Double Diamond used to do...
Kent have lost Sam Billings to England, but field a deep batting side, even if the bowling looks a little on the light side. Their squad:
Sam Northeast (c), Daniel Bell-Drummond, Joe Denly, Rob Key, Ben Harmison, Fabian Cowdrey, Darren Stevens, Ryan
Davies (w), Calum Haggett, Matt Coles, Ivan Thomas, Adam
Riley
They are the sort of team that we have the talent to beat and I'd like to think that the return of some good, experienced cricketers will make a difference for us. With the weather set fair, it is a game we can win.
Just as long as we're not caught on a spinning track on the last day...
Given our performances against spin this year (or most years), I imagine that the ground staff are on their knees now with nail brushes taking off every last vestige of grass, although Kent's highly rated spinner seems to be having as thin a time as ours - so far.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised by our team selection here. There's been no explanation for Poynton replacing Hosein, but it certainly isn't the huge volume of runs that the former has been scoring in the second team, or his form in the T20. Whilst Hosein hasn't been making big scores, he's usually contributed something, at least more than Elstone who has retained his place in the squad despite only scoring 49 runs in his last 5 innings. Likewise Critchley. I fully take the point about his bowling - and indeed have made it myself - but he's usually contributed something with the bat. The likeliest team looks like being Poynton at 7, then White, Palladino, Taylor and Footitt, which doesn't give me great confidence on current form. We know that most of them can score runs but there's very little current evidence that they will.
Just seen the team - Elstone at six instead of Thakor, who batted well against Gloucs and at least kept his head on Friday night. I suppose it's based on Elstone bowling spin, but nothing I've seen this year convinces me that he's good enough at this level. Perhaps our best chance now is commenter's curse coming into play.
ReplyDeleteElstone fails again.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I not surprised ?
Chris.
Another major and I mean major batting embarrassment. All the hard work of the bowlers totally and utterly outdone by these imposters with a bat in hand. Five ducks as I post this, and Durston is 30 not out. Absolutely shameful and Welch is going to be under fire very soon.
ReplyDeleteSeriously Mark? This is a long term plan and there will be short term issues in going along this path.
ReplyDeleteWelch retains my confidence despite recent problems. Give him a full squad to choose from and he will be fine.
Same old excuses coming out once again. I'm with Mark on this one.
ReplyDeleteH
I'm not..it is the last thing we need right now
ReplyDeleteIt's a huge concern that our top order is being blown away so quickly. At the start of the season they were giving us a decent platform. The other concern is that there isn't much batters knocking on the door to be included in the first team.
ReplyDeleteH
I dont disagree with that...
ReplyDeleteThe issue with the top order is not new and has clearly not anywhere near being rectified. You can go back as far as the promotion season and we still had the same problem being rescued by the lower order. We have been propped up by the captain over the last few years and it is not a surprise at all to see what happens when he is not in the line up. This season the overseas players going forward seem focussed on the one day game, which we are still failing in therefore I struggle to see where the runs will come from unless someone steps up to the plate
ReplyDeleteShameful show with the bat - the worrying thing is how unsurprising it is.
ReplyDelete