Derbyshire 150 (Thakor 47 not)
Sussex 342-4 (Joyce 106, Wells 104 not, Nash 65, Taylor 54, Madsen 2-65, Taylor 2-87)
Sussex lead by 192 runs
At the end of another fairly wretched day, Derbyshire are still just about within sight of Sussex in this match, but need to bowl extremely well tomorrow and then bat a heck of a lot better than they have done in their last two championship innings to give them a game.
The thinking money is on it not happening at present, much as it pains me to say so. There appears a crisis of confidence that I hope can be sorted soon and the onus is on the senior players to rally and turn things around. In such roles they are paid well and need to justify those salaries, as do all professional sportsmen.
To give credit to Derbyshire, they stuck to their task fairly well and didn't give too much away. Wayne Madsen confirmed that my pre-season appraisal of his bowling was accurate in bowling a long and economical spell that was rewarded with two wickets, while two late wickets for Tom Taylor made up for some earlier expense. The discipline that they show will come in useful in years to come, but for now they are just not penetrative enough and the attack lacks the 'oomph' it had when the captain could toss the ball to Mark Footitt.
The others bowled tidily, but the batsmen were largely untroubled and, from reports, rather got themselves out.
We'll see tomorrow if there is more fight in the side, but the likelihood is that there will be a deficit of around 350 on first innings.
The stuff of nightmares, really.
Still in sight of Sussex? Blimey, where did you buy your binoculars, I want a pair of those.
ReplyDeleteThe encouraging news was that Madsen got Joyce out early and hopefully he can do the same to Wells tomorrow morning.
Of course they are still in sight Doug. They have shown they can score 500 before, which would keep them in the game.
DeleteDont need binoculars..just common sense at this stage. But every run over a 300 lead makes that less likely.
Awful.
ReplyDeleteDire season ahead, it doesn't need Einstein to predict that. Still sticking my neck out and saying this is one of the worst Derbyshire sides I can recall, not the worst but certainly not far off. I can see this game being over not long into day four with Sussex winning by eight wickets.
ReplyDeleteWe shall see if Mystic Mark is correct...
DeleteIn sight suggests we a chance or victory, not just being given an option of batting 150 overs to draw.
ReplyDeleteNo it doesn't. Out of sight suggests we cannot get a result. This will be tough and we may not be capable but they are not out of sight..that would be 500 lead...
DeleteIt's looking like it'll be a tough season! But potentially a valuable one if Taylor, Critchley and Cotton can learn and be effective parts of the bowling attack for years to come.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The more overs they get this summer the better equipped they will be for knowing what is needed to get to the next stage
DeleteAnon..not publishing your comment as it breaks house rules of no name and is basically stirring things. Your question on Welch was answered by .me the other night and the rest is conjecture, which I don't deal with.
ReplyDeleteWhilst watching the test match I thought I would do a little research into the age profile of the 23 members of the squad who are eligible to play in the four day team
ReplyDeleteWe have 4 under the age of 21.
11 between the age of 21 and 25.
4 between the age of 26 and 30.
4 between the age of 31 and 35. Sorry Wes I included a 36 years plus section thinking you fell into that but I was wrong.
I do n't know what the age profiles of the other clubs are but ours is certainly young with 15 of the squad being 25 or under. Another surprise was that Tom Knight is only 22 he seems to have been with club for a lot longer than that.
our youngsters need time to develope and we need to create an environment to make this happen because if we fail to do that we will have even darker years a head whilst we wait for the following generation. There is of course a responsibility on the coaching staff but also one on the senior players to stand up to be counted.