Derbyshire 149-8 (Godleman 33, Durston 32)
Worcestershire 150-6 (Hughes 2-21)
Worcestershire won by 4 wickets
Derbyshire made a decent fist of their last T20 game against Worcestershire tonight, but ultimately fell short as a decent (and perhaps over-achieving) Worcestershire side that bats a long way down and has a world-class spinner in its midst.
Indeed, they have a good overseas combo, with New Zealander Colin Munro giving good value over the past couple of years as a middle order batsman capable of introducing the 'oomph' as and when required.
We battled down the order and five players got going, though no one went on to the score that defines and wins a game. Another twenty runs would have made for a good finish, especially when Alex Hughes bowled yet another fine spell in this competition, neatly replicating the earlier figures of the considerably more experienced Saeed Ajmal.
Nor did Greg Cork nor Shiv Thakor let us down, or their more experienced team mates. We just didn't have enough runs to play with, not for the first time this year.
For what it is worth, I don't think there's much wrong with our bowlers for another year. With Ben Cotton to come back into the attack, and the addition of a couple of batsmen, one of who can contribute a few overs, we will improve still further. Another winter should aid the development and enhance the skills of each of them and we have shown that when we perform to maximum potential we can win games.
Tonight wasn't one of them, but we will have learned a lot from this year.
A match that rather summed up the campaign. Obvious signs of improvement, but ultimately still more skill and nous required. A good recovery after the power play went array, and an enterprising partnership between improving players in hughes and knight that got us within 10-15 of a par score, a good effort with the ball but a few too many bad balls cost us.
ReplyDeletePositives are how we've performed in the powerplay (up to today!) with Rutherford and Durston, Alex Hughes is now more than a match for his equivalents (eg collingwood, mullaney, mitchell) on the circuit, and Thakor, Cork and Cotton have all come on. Together with White and Palladino we should have more than enough to compete with other counties in the seam department.
Wes is better than a part time spinner but we do lack a frontline option in the complete absence of David Wainwrights form, and clearly we also lack a lower order finisher. Tom Knights lack of overs is a worry, and he should have been given more of a go with the bat, and perhaps next season we could make use of the overseas slot to fix one of these problems. There aren't many who would fix both, but in the ODI series I was very impressed with Mitchell Santner, who hits the ball extremely hard and is a more than passable spinner if no match winner. Also we will hopefully learn from the three close games we should have won, and can challenge for the quarter finals next year.