Derbyshire 444
Gloucestershire 563 (Dent 180, Norwell 102, Marshall 72, Noema-Barnett 58, Hughes 3-87, Durston 3-149)
It is fair comment to say that we took a bit of a pasting today.
The home side added 453 to their overnight tally, leaving Derbyshire a potentially tricky last day, which they will commence 119 runs behind.
There should be few concerns about the pitch, which reports are calling 'benign' and 'a road' That a confirmed number eleven was able to last long enough to register a maiden century in any form of cricket speaks volumes. Mind you, it says just as much about Derbyshire bowling that was too short, too often and did little to cause upset. Poor, in short and they are better than that.
Dent is a good player who often does well against us, but the ease with which batsmen were able to get in and score freely should have been seen by our batsmen ahead of the final day as a positive. There would appear no reason why we should worry about defeat, but tomorrow SHOULD be about getting time in the middle. It is a good test for our resilience and I will have concerns if we get into bother on such a track.
I don't share the concerns voiced in comments last night at this stage, but all of our bowlers are capable of much better than they showed here. My greatest concern, from here and other grounds across the country, is that we may see groundsmen erring too much on the side of caution in pitch preparation. With the visiting skipper able to choose to bowl before a contested toss, maybe we will see too many moribund tracks where runs can be steadily accumulated at will.
Give me a sporting track any time, but look over this round of matches and you will see batsmen feasting and bowlers labouring. Positive results will be only the result of contrived cricket in most cases.
I find that sad. And boring.
Mind you, I'll settle for boring at Bristol tomorrow...
A poor day, but tomorrow gives the players an opportunity to demonstrate the character of this team, and it's important that they make the most of it.
ReplyDeleteI think Martin's point about character will be key today. Iain O'Brien wrote a really insightful article last year for ESPN on the anatomy of the collapse (based on his own experience but maybe inspired by watching Derbyshire last year) which basically made the point that they start on the pitch but gather momentum in the mind. There's no reason in the conditions to expect problems for our batsmen today. The ball was turning yesterday but very slowly, and Gloucestershire's spin bowling is no better than ours. However, there were enough occasions last year when we collapsed on good pitches in our second innings after the bowlers had lost the initiative, often on the third day. Just as much as supporters, the players must have this in mind, and we have to hope that the relentless assurances that lessons have been learnt from last year will be demonstrated.
ReplyDeleteI'll be watching this from a safe distance, having planned only the second and third day in Bristol, but yesterday was a shocker, even by some of the standards set last year. All of the bowlers were culpable to an extent. Even though Gloucs bowlers had shown that some control could be exercised by bowling length, ours all banged the ball in. It looked like a plan rather than indiscipline, but it was extraordinary that they carried it on long after Norwell showed he could manage it. The worst of it though was the width that all of them gave the batsmen. Fletcher could perhaps be excused, as I believe he's missed all of Notts pre-season, and this might have been his first outdoors bowl this season. Carter might have been a case of being over-anxious to impress, and it begs the question why he didn't play in the university mztch. Cotton just looked pedestrian as he did for most of last year, and it's hard to see why he was preferred to Palladino. This is an old tune for me, I know, but Palladino looked the sharpest of the bowlers against Durham, and conditions at Bristol would have suited him better than any of the others. He's obviously fit from the amount of time he spent on the field yesterday, so I assume the issue might be that with Hosein and Critchley not playing, Cotton or Taylor has to meet the ECB quota of 22 or unders in the team.
Top performance from Chesney, we have a spinner at last, has someone remodelled his action over the winter?
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