Northamptonshire 342 and 122
Derbyshire 146 and 246 (Lace 41)
Northamptonshire won by 72 runs
And so, as I expected, Derbyshire slid to defeat against Northamptonshire before lunch today.
There were those still entertaining hopes of a home win, but even good old optimist Peakfan tends more to the pragmatic and err to the realistic side.
When you see your top batsmen struggling to score the runs, any expectation of the lower order to bail you out should be tempered.
Having said that, full marks to the team for battling to the very end and scoring more runs than I expected. Almost everyone chipped in and there was a second unbeaten innings for Fynn Hudson-Prentice, reinforcing not just his talent but also my assertion that he should be batting higher.
It was a defeat, but as I have previously written, one that was largely dictated by the winning of the toss on the first morning. It was a result pitch, but not a good one, as shown by the 24 wickets that went down yesterday.
It is not the end of our promotion ambitions, but we cannot afford too many more defeats. It is also a shame that the long anticipated Chesterfield Cricket Festival did not get more than two days cricket. With the weekend forecast not looking especially good at this stage, supporters in that part of the county will consider themselves unlucky and perhaps short-changed again.
By the same token, had we won the toss, and had a batsman to take advantage of the best of the wicket as Temba Bavuma did, that would have been of less importance.
We move on, and keep our fingers crossed on the weather...
I think, with the gung-ho approach of batters from both sides as the match progressed, knowing that they might as well attempt to score quick runs before a ball arrived with their name on it, Derbyshire have done themselves and the North Derbyshire public no good at all with a wicket of variable bounce and movement. Balls going left and right can be mastered to a point, but when they go up and down as well...
ReplyDeleteThe Lancashire game at Derby did have a reason to be difficult, because of the problem with rain under the covers. Here, and with a good week of weather to prepare, we haven't got it right.
Out grounds do have their problems, but to me surely it'd be better to prepare a wicket that lasts, than one with a positive result in mind ? And I'm being generous with those comments I know.
In conclusion I'd certainly be happier watching another day and a half's cricket, than sat in the pub/library (delete as appropriate) penning this.
Awful tactics for me not to promote FH-P this time. In fact due to the night watchman he was effectively demoted and finished undefeated again. 81 not out (twice in the two innings) how many more runs did we throw away in this second innings by not allowing him more 36 balls at the crease. Poor decisions like this cost games. I’ve got no issues with our tactics in the second innings. We had to go and attack and it’s disappointing we lost this game with that mad middle session on day 1. We had a lot of dot balls in the first session and it was just a shame we couldn’t get Bavuma or another wicket or two that session as we might have been looking at a different game. Not to worry on we go. Still in it.
ReplyDeleteOnce Lace went early this morning, I felt that was it. But what a great display by Hudson Prentice again. He's now top of the batting averages and second in the bowling averages.
ReplyDeleteMatt Critchley is in a poor run of form with the bat, and expensive with the ball. Hopefully, his form will return soon, but perhaps we should leave him out for the first T20 match. He didn't perform that well in the competition last season (154 runs at 17 and 4 wickets at 37). I'd replace him with Watt, even though he doesn't look much of a batsman, which, assuming van Beek and Rampaul play, would give us a long tail . But if Dal comes in, that means we can bat down to 8.
In defence of the pitch, it was a challenging pitch but the scores in the first and last innings showed that it was possible to stay in and score runs. Against most of the predictions, it hadn't deteriorated much and with some of the pace going out of it, might not have become much more difficult if the game had gone to its full extent. So I don't think it's right to put this one down to either the toss or the pitch. It was amusing to hear a couple of Northants supporters talking about the possibility of a points deduction - if any enforcement action is needed, it's the batting police that are needed rather than the pitch panel.
ReplyDeleteBoth sides batted horribly yesterday. Derbyshire batted mostly with a tentative terror that suggested Northants were bowling with hand grenades until Hudson - Prentice showed how to play on this wicket, with positive intention and full commitment to his shots, and Derbyshire sensibly adopted this approach in their second innings. Although Godleman's aggression took the eye and set the tone, none of the others were excessively aggressive. Northants batted aimlessly and casually as if just playing for the inevitable declaration at lunch today with a target of 450, and unless they were going to use the time more productively, it's difficult to see why they didn't enforce the follow-on.
For me, the margin of defeat was the first afternoon, when we bowled indifferently at times, gifted maybe 30 runs because we didn't have a third man for most of the time - always bad cricket to my mind but all the more so on such a small ground and with the ball regularly dropping low off edges - and particularly two dropped catches by Wayne Madsen, who had a pretty indifferent game all round. Add into the equation a brilliant innings by Bavuma - interesting to note that two games ago some Northants supporters were calling for him to be dropped and sent home - and what might have been a manageable par 250 had grown to 342. And with that, we would have been very much in the match today. With better batting yesterday, this game would have gone well into the 4th day, with the challenges of the pitch contributing to what might have been a classic.
On the subject of the batting order, I don't think this is a sign of poor selection. For sure, Hudson-Prentice is better than a number 8, and being left not out in both innings supports this view. We had this with Harvey Hosein a couple of years ago, and if we move H-P up the order, will be saying the same thing about whoever gets moved down. Rather than being a matter of complaint, we should be celebrating the fact that we have a team with 3 genuine all-rounders and a wicket-keeper worth his place in the top 6. I think there does need to be more flexibility to reflect who is in form and who is best suited to the conditions and circumstances, but the presence of a H_P, Dal, Hosein or Critchley at 8 is a sign of strength not perverse selection.