Derbyshire v Kent preview

The run up to this fixture is always tinged with sadness for me. I used to enjoy and exchange of mails with the late Martin Moseling, a fervent Kent supporter and accomplished writer, catching up on lives and the fortunes of our teams. His passing was untimely and he is missed by many, not just in his own county.

Today's game's big challenge is to avoid anti-climax after yesterday's sparkling effort. While the photos I saw didn't suggest a packed Old Trafford (how could it be, with the FA Cup final on that featured one of the city's teams?) it will have been a bigger crowd than will be at the 3aaa County Ground today. I hope it is warmer than I experienced on my last trip and am sure that our boys will be looking to get away to a flier this morning.

We need a really good first innings, but the truth is that any tinge of green will see the away team bowl and have a strong likelihood of success. Unless, of course, they misread the pitch...

Derbyshire go with an unchanged squad, namely:

Billy Godleman (Captain)
Chesney Hughes
Hamish Rutherford
Wayne Madsen
Neil Broom
Shiv Thakor
Matthew Critchley
Tom Poynton
Tom Milnes
Tony Palladino
Ben Cotton
Tom Taylor

It looks like one of the seamers will miss out this morning and I wouldn't attempt to second-guess Graeme Welch on that one.

Kent come without the injured Darren Stevens and Adam Riley, so there are recalls for Matt Coles and James Tredwell in their squad. They have been batting well this summer, with another Kiwi, Tom Latham, doing well for them.

Sam Northeast, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Tom Latham, Joe Denly, Sean Dickson, Alex Blake, Adam Rouse, Calum Haggett, Matt Coles, James Tredwell, Mitchell Claydon, Matt Hunn, Ivan Thomas.

While the weather forecast suggests some play lost to light rain tomorrow, the forecast for the rest of the game is fine. We will need to be on top of our game from the outset to get a win on the board and certainly need greater penetration with the ball.

Rekindling the intensity of yesterday would be no bad thing and on that note, thank you to everyone who made it the biggest single day in the blog's history. It went way past the number who looked in when we announced the signing of Shiv Chanderpaul and I did a double-take when I saw the statistics last night.

Thank you - and good luck today, lads!