Derbyshire squad announced

It is nice to see 19-year old Callum Brodrick in the Derbyshire 14 for tonight's visit to Northampton, just as it is good to see the name of Hardus Viljoen in there.

Brodrick could be along for the experience, but Viljoen, presumably, is deemed fit to play in an attack that I would expect to be himself with Matt Henry, Imran Tahir, Ben Cotton and Matt Critchley, with others pitching in as required.

That squad:

Billy Godleman
Luis Reece
Ben Slater
Wayne Madsen
Alex Hughes
Gary Wilson
Callum Brodrick
Daryn Smit
Matt Critchley
Hardus Viljoen
Matt Henry
Tom Taylor
Ben Cotton
Imran Tahir

I would have liked to see Tom Wood at the top of the order, but he picked up an injury in the second team and had to retire when batting. The lack of top order 'oomph' has been commented upon by myself and others, but the counter-argument is that when we have had it (Guptill, Dilshan, Bosman from overseas, Ches and Wes domestically) we didn't win many games. There were perhaps hopes that Tim Maxfield could have provided that impetus, but his three trial innings scores were 0, 1 and 1. Perhaps his time will come again, but such scores will sadly not have convinced anyone yet.

So let's give John Wright his head and see how it goes. For me, the ones to miss out here would be Godleman, Taylor and Brodrick, though the latter is a hard-hitting and in-form batsman and fine fielder, so his inclusion cannot be discarded, as much for the fact that no one really knows him and novelty value is always useful.

Northamptonshire, conversely, have a side packed with hard hitting batsmen, with Duckett, Cobb, Rossington and Keogh dangerous in the format. Richard Levi may or may not be fit but their top order will take some handling.

In closing, three things I would like to see from us in the competition this year:

1 Top-class fielding. Games are won and lost on catches held and runs saved. Simple really.

2 Common sense. Ten an over doesn't require at least a boundary, although one early in the over tkes pressure off. Four twos and two singles get you there too, so better running, placement, timing of shots and minimisation of dot balls are key.

3 Chin supports. Heads have sometimes gone down when opposition batsmen have got going. The role of senior players is to keep the others going and take the chances when they arise.

My team:

Slater
Reece
Madsen
Hughes
Wilson
Critchley
Henry
Smit
Viljoen
Cotton
Tahir

It is a decent attack with eight bowling options, and if there's no real top order 'biffer', there are some fine clean hitters in the middle and lower order.

We'll see soon enough.

Your thoughts?