Greatest Derbyshire team chosen

As part of their 150th anniversary celebrations, the club's  supporters have voted for their greatest-ever eleven, within selected parameters. Those in the mix had to have played for at least five seasons, while there was a pre-determined balance to the side.

The final side selected read:

Kim Barnett
Peter Bowler
John Morris
Wayne Madsen
Peter Kirsten
Dominic Cork
Geoff Miller
Bob Taylor
Albert Rhodes
Les Jackson
Mike Hendrick

I agreed with most of that side, but would have made several changes. The problem with such ideas, of course, is that more recent players will always be picked. I would argue that a batsman with an average of thirty on uncovered wickets was every bit as good as one who averaged forty in more favourable conditions.  Similarly, one assumes that this is for four-day cricket and there is no prior knowledge of the wicket on which it will be played. Yes, the game was different pre-war, but one can only be a stand-out in the conditions of the time.

For me, Arnold Hamer would have been an opener. I didn't see him, but those whose judgement I respect deem him a wonderful batsman. Had he stayed with his native Yorkshire he may have gained international honours, but for ten years or more he led, some might say carried, the Derbyshire batting, often with little support. He was a big chap and wasn't a great fielder, but you judge people by the times in which they played and Arnold must have been a very fine batsman. So too Denis Smith, but he had more support in the batting side of the 1930s, which often cobbled together enough runs to bowl at.

Hamer and Barnett in full flow would be worth the admission fee alone and in dropping Peter Bowler I mean no disrespect to a fine cricketer whose contribution to the club I enjoyed.

I would have liked to have included Stan Worthington too, but can't fault the engine room of the batting, while George Pope would have been a strong candidate for seam bowling all-rounder, though Dominic Cork a logical, match-winning winner. Both had the winning mentality and I am happy to go with our T20 coach.

Geoff Miller was a very fine player and in his category was always the likely winner, though Les Townsend should have been in that section. 11871 runs and 832 wickets for Geoff Miller, with 32 five-wicket hauls. Townsend had 19555 runs at a higher average, plus 1088 wickets at a lower one, with 51 five-wicket hauls. He also made 22 centuries, while Geoff managed just the two. Reports suggest Les a ferocious hitter of spin bowling, with Tommy Mitchell recounting how he bowled to him in the nets and 'then ran away'!

As for the spinner, I would have loved to include Edwin Smith, but had to go with Tommy Mitchell. A mercurial bowler, very much his own man, he won an extraordinary number of matches throughout the championship decade. On the bad days, like most of his kind, he could go around the park, but on the good ones, when the ball was coming out as he wanted, he was by all accounts extraordinary.

118 five-wicket hauls, he took. One hundred and eighteen, that in a career of only twelve seasons. Let that sink in a little. Rhodes had 29, Edwin Smith had 51, and THEY were both outstanding bowlers.

Finally, the seam bowlers. Les Jackson was always going to be one, legend as he is, but my partner for him, dropping the father and bringing in the son, was Harold Rhodes. Mike Hendrick was an outstanding bowler, but Rhodes had pace, bounce and movement. He was just short of a thousand wickets for the county when he retired from first-class cricket at the age of just 33, accepting more lucrative employment elsewhere. Had he continued, he might have challenged the county record of Les Jackson, but figures never mattered to Harold

So my final eleven, for what it is worth:

Kim Barnett
Arnold Hamer
John Morris
Wayne Madsen
Peter Kirsten
Dominic Cork
Les Townsend (in correct category) or Geoff Miller
Bob Taylor
Tommy Mitchell
Les Jackson
Harold Rhodes

I can't complain though. Of the side chosen by supporters, the only one I didn't see was 'Dusty' Rhodes. I saw Les Jackson in a couple of charity matches and he was still pitching it on a line and length, several years after he retired.

When you are great, you are always great.

This side is so good, I would even watch them in a hundred-ball competition. But indulge me and let me enjoy five days of cricketing heaven.

Questions answered

With a little time today. more than I have had all week, it is time to answer a few questions!

Mark asked if I thought we might see a new wicket-keeper taken on, with Daryn Smit retiring to take up his coaching role.

The short answer is no. There are plenty of young keeper out there to play in the seconds, and Harvey Hosein has made the four-day role his own. Ben McDermott will keep in the one-day competitions and if we had an injury, it would be easy enough to take someone on loan.

Meanwhile. Gareth asked if I thought we might sign another batsman, allowing Luis Reece to drop to the middle order. Again, I suspect the answer is no. Luis likes opening and is happy to handle the workload of doing that and his share of bowling. With Sean Abbott and Michael Cohen strengthening the attack from last year, he may not have to do quite so much bowling in 2020, which will make his life a little easier.

As for Matt Critchley's contract situation, I am sure that Derbyshire are keen to extend his deal, but the player will want to see how this year goes. The increased stability at the club will be a strong argument for his staying, but interest from elsewhere will depend on him enjoying better form than last year. He did well in the T20, but his batting form was fragile and his bowling only sporadically effective in other formats.

This will be a big year for him, but a very good one will see the circling vultures drop lower. We can only do so much financially, but if he decides the grass is greener elsewhere, there is a logical successor on the staff in Mattie McKiernan. Hopefully recovered from his stress fracture of last year, he has a lot to offer with bat and ball, while his fielding will always be an asset.

Definitely something to keep an eye on, but while I would love to see Critchley stay at Derbyshire, I couldn't call it at this stage. He will be aware of the travails of his good friend, Ben Slater, at Nottinghamshire though, where after a fine start in the RLODC he had a tough year.

Sometimes the grass is anything but greener on the other side of the fence.

An interview with Tony Palladino part 2

You made your Essex debut in 2003. Who were the players and coaches who helped you at that stage?

Geoff Arnold and Neil Foster were two of my early mentors. They were both outstanding bowlers and helped me a lot.

It's funny, I have always been a big student of the game and yet today you get a lot of young players and they don't know who their coaches are, and what good players they were in their own time. I knew all about mine and what they had done in the game.

Having said that, I never needed a lot of work, because I had a natural 'clean' action. I got crossed over a bit when I was younger, but a lot of their advice was on how to get batters out. They told me to look at his grip, watch his hands, his feet, how he stands at the crease.

Real attention to detail!

It was. You'd learn that if a batsman held the bat high on the handle he would wanting to drive you, but lower down he was a puller and cutter. Little things, that meant a lot and you could adjust your length for them accordingly.

Nowadays we have analysts, of course, who can tell you how they score their runs, but back then it made a difference. The quicker you can work a batsman out, the quicker you can get him out!

I used to keep a notebook of how and where I bowled to specific batsmen, how I got them out and it was all very useful, before it was done for us. When I signed for Derbyshire I had a long chat with Chris Silverwood about that and he encouraged it, especially for players you had played against rarely, or perhaps hadn't played before.

It's interesting though, because you could have success against a player one year with them nicking off, but then the next year they would be further across, having worked hard on their footwork over the winter. So then you would perhaps look for a leg before, if they got too far across.

You have to be prepared to adapt!

Do the umpires say much? There used to be stories that they would sometimes offer advice, especially if they had been bowlers too?

Yeah, sometimes. I have a good relationship with the umpires, especially the former bowlers like Neil Mallender and Dave Millns. Pete Hartley is another; he's told me in the past that perhaps I needed to get my wrist stronger, if the seam was wobbling on the way down to the batsman.

It is all very cordial. You can learn from them. Neil Mallender has played a lot of cricket, not just in England, but in New Zealand and he will tell you how he adapted his bowling around the country and between countries.

He told me that when he had the successful Test at Headingley against Pakistan he completely changed his bowling style. He was previously a 'hit the deck' bowler, but made sure he pitched it up and swung it there.

I guess that was as challenge for Logan (van Beek) this year?

Yes, he had to learn to bowl a different length and with a different ball. It was a steep learning curve for him, but then every day is a school day!

Your time at Essex is best remembered, of course, for your exposing the match-fixing scandal that involved Danish Kaneria and Mervyn Westfield. That must have been a hard time for you?

It was. It was a very tough time and it could have ended much better. I was encouraged to report what I had seen but there was no real support from the club. Of course, all the anti-corruption protocols came after that, so things have improved, but I felt that I was in trouble myself, because we were all interviewed by the Metropolitan Police. Merv and I ended up playing in the same second team, which wasn't easy, and it all dragged on pretty horribly.

It all worked out very well of course, when I got to sign for Derbyshire.

How did that come about?

Well, I knew someone who had John Morris' number and he came to see me at Billericay. I did well in the match and he had a word afterwards and said that he would be in touch.

I signed in November, a deal that was less than half what I was on at Essex – and I wasn't on a lot there!

I lived in a room above a pub that year, because it was all I could afford, but the club got good value out of that first summer...

So much for the exotic lifestyle of the professional sportsman!

Yeah! But you know, I knew that if I stayed fit I would play. At Essex, I only got a game if there were injuries and as soon as the player was fit I was dropped again, no matter what I had done. One year I took sixteen wickets in four games, but still got dropped - or 'rested' as they called it, when someone was fit.

The second year I was on the same money I was on at Essex, so that was OK.

And that was the promotion year, of course

Yeah that was my favourite year in the game. I got a hundred, a hat-trick, fifty wickets, we won promotion. It was a great summer, we had a really good dressing room, and I just revelled in being a key part of the side. Karl Krikken made me feel welcome and treated me well. If he rested me he made it clear that he really needed me for the game after that. Hearing that from a coach was great, and feeling wanted made a huge difference to my performances.

An interview with Tony Palladino - part 1

The word 'legend' is overused in the modern era,sometimes attributed to a player who scores a couple of fine goals in a football match, or take a few wickets at cricket.

For me, the word 'legend' should be used in the same breath as 'loyalty' and I would be wary of using it for anyone who didn't give a good chunk of their career to a particular club. In an era when players move around with nigh the regularity of a new ball, the word is rarely correctly used as far as I am concerned.

The true legends for Derbyshire are the long career men. Bestwick, Copson. Mitchell, the Popes, Rhodes (senior and junior) Hamer, Edwin Smith – it is a long and illustrious list.

Of the current squad, Wayne Madsen has achieved and justifies such a status for duration and deeds, while Billy Godleman is getting there. Tony Palladino is up there and deserving too.

Next year will be his tenth for the county. Players have come and gone in that period, but Tony has stayed fit, run in hard (usually from the Racecourse End at Derby) and remained one of the more affable players in county cricket.

I have known him for many of those summers and recall a long chat in the pavilion after we won the second division title in 2012. His open demeanour and ready smile are gifts not given to all, but they have been appreciated by Derbyshire supporters in particular.

I caught up with him at Derby, back in September. We sat in front of the Gateway building and chatted as Billy Godleman and Luis Reece went out to bat at the start of what proved a monumental stand against Sussex. My request for an interview had received a quick and positive reply and his easy conversational style prompted a few additional questions to those I had prepared.

He is a fine man and a fine cricketer, one to enjoy while we have the chance to do so.

So Tony, you're a London boy. Where did you start playing your cricket? At school or at a club?

I played for Tower Hamlets and played just one game of cricket for my school. But that game was seen by a chap who was involved in the London Schools set up and my first game for them was for the under-elevens at Arundel!

I played for them until under-15 level and then my Mum and Dad, who realised I had a bit of talent, enrolled me in Wanstead Cricket Club, where there was a good junior section. I played there until my late teens, but I didn't have a county at that time.

I was picked up by Essex at an indoor tournament where I was playing. It's funny, because I was born and bred in East London and so Middlesex was my county. I had one trial and game for them, but that was it. So I played for Essex Academy and it went on from there.

A lot of people don't realise how tough it really is to get into county cricket. As a young bowler, what demands did you face?

The step up in standard is massive, from even good club cricket. My second team debut was in 1999, when I was sixteen or seventeen. It was at New Road, Worcester and the wicket was so different. In club cricket you can often get away with half volleys, because they are so slow, but I was bowling what I thought was a good length and getting hit around the park. It was a steep learning curve.

There's also the demands on the body. You play club cricket once a week and bowl maybe twelve overs, then nothing until the next weekend, apart from a few in the nets. In my first-class debut I bowled the whole of the first day, then we were bowled out quickly and I was bowling again on the second afternoon, when I was still stiff from the previous day.

I think that is one of the problems with modern bowlers. There are all these restrictions on what they can bowl at fourteen, fifteen,sixteen, but if they are good enough they get to first-class level and are suddenly expected to bowl twenty overs in a day, when they are only used to ten!

And that's when the body starts to rebel...

Yeah. When I was captain of London Schools I bowled a lot. In one fifty-over game I bowled throughout at one end, as a stock bowler, keeping it tight. It didn't affect me and I don't think I have ever had a stress fracture. I may have done, but I played through the odd sore back and I think it stood me in good stead when there was a greater expectation of me bowling for a long time.

Sure, I had injuries, as all seamers do, as it isn't a natural thing to do. I feel really sorry for Olly Stone, who has been really unlucky with repeated stress fractures and I never had that. So I was able to bowl a lot and I guess be noticed as a result.

That's been a problem for a few at Derbyshire, of course?

That's right. The likes of Sam (Conners) and Alfie (Gleadall) have had back issues and it has hampered their development. You lose rhythm when you stop playing, then have to start again and all the while you still have to make that step up.

Today, for example, I bowled four overs before we started today, to get loose and get my rhythm. So the overs soon mount up and there's no getting around that. If you bowl a lot of overs one day, and your captain decides to enforce the follow-on, you have to get yourself mentally and physically ready to bowling the same number of overs with the same level of intensity on the following day.

The quicker a young bowler learns what they need to do to be able to do that, the better they will be. We all have our own routines – but you see some bowlers go and bowl a few overs around nine o'clock, then more in the pre-match warm up. If you then have to bowl twenty in the innings, you have bowled thirty in the day!

I don't bowl until the warm up. I go out in my whites around 10.45am, bowl a few balls in my whites and then I am ready to go. You have to manage your work load and your energy levels.

Especially for the T20, of course. I have spoken to a lot of old Derbyshire players and while they bowled a lot of overs, there was no real expectation that they threw themselves around in the field...

Oh that's right and you also have your fielding drills to do and you are expected to go and have a knock in the nets, because tail enders are few and far between now. You look at people like Jonathan Agnew and plenty closer to home, and they would rarely do much in the nets with a bat in their hand.

There's the story about the legendary Hampshire bowler, Derek Shackleton, whose pre-match warm-up was allegedly to comb his hair and have a fag. Yet he still took over two thousand wickets for them....

(Laughs) Yes and it didn't do him much harm! Again, it is what works for the individual that matters.

To be continued...

Priestley signs to add competition

I first became aware of the name of Nils Priestley a couple of years ago, when someone whose opinion I respect told me that he was a young player of considerable talent.

Back then he was a budding all-rounder, hitting the ball hard with long levers, as well as bowling swing at a decent pace. A few injuries have changed his bowling style to slow left-arm, which is a work in progress, but his batting remains clean and and uncomplicated.

He will not want for support as he develops his game, with Mal Loye freed from Academy duties to play more of a role with the senior squad, Daryn Smit taking his place, of course. There are good role models around him too and Nils may find himself rewarded for good early season form with some matches in the RLODC this summer.

Very much in his favour is a growing reputation as a dynamic fielder, which will always edge a player ahead of the competition when selection meetings take place.

Dave Houghton knows batting and batsmen and must rate the young left-hander. The rest is up to him, but judging by his comments on social media over the last 48 hours, he seems a grounded, sensible lad.

Getting on to the staff at a professional sports club is a fine achievement, but the real work starts now. Derbyshire has perhaps its strongest batting line-up since the halcyon days of Barnett, Bowler, Morris and Adams in Godleman, Reece, Madsen and du Plooy. Nils will doubtless fight hard to be considered for one of the places below them.

Such competition can only be good for all concerned.

Congratulations, Nils.

Go well.

Smit calls time on career for coaching role

Derbyshire's young cricketers really couldn't wish for a better coach than Daryn Smit, who today announced his retirement from the game, at the age of 35, to become the Head of the Talent Pathway at the club.

His remit is to increase the number of young players graduating from the academy into the first team, something that needs to be addressed in the years ahead. Plenty of exciting young players have appeared in the Academy in the last ten years, but too few have become established in the first-class game.

Smit's role will be to discover why and hopefully reverse the trend. Of course, Alex Hughes, Harvey Hosein and Sam Conners are all graduates, while Matt Critchley moved to Derbyshire from Lancashire. If Daryn can identify the cream of local talent and structure their progression through the ranks to become key components of a Derbyshire side, it will be a job well done.

He has been a very good cricketer, primarily in South Africa but also in Derbyshire. We never got to see his real talent with the bat, though there were a few cameos in T20 cricket that played a part in the success of the past two summers. His cricketing nous was appreciated by Billy Godleman, and one always knew that there was sound counsel available when things started to get tight.

But his wicket-keeping...in a county blessed by a number of fine glove men over its history, Smit must have been up there with the best. In my experience, only Bob Taylor was better, but to be second to the best is no bad thing. He was always balanced, always in control, his hands like those of a magician as he removed the bails of batsmen lured down the track and beaten. It was always undemonstrative, with none of the flourish of some, but with high reliability.

He made the odd mistake, but doesn't everyone? The best ensure that these are the exception, rather than the rule and the ball dropped into his gloves with no noise, as if landing in a bed of cotton wool.
There were tough catches that were made to look easy, nigh impossible ones that were taken in two hands, as if they were routine.

He can have had few worse days on a cricket pitch than at Durham in 2018, when the second innings bowling of Messrs Viljoen and Olivier saw the byes rack up with bowling of hideous accuracy. Yet the truth was that the tally was nothing to do with him, and had Harvey Hosein been there too the total would have been unacceptable.Yet at the end of the day he was as charming and approachable as ever, happy to pass the time of day. The sign of a true sportsman, and gentleman.

He will doubtless play the odd game in the Lancashire League when he can, his shoulder hopefully restored to health after winter surgery, post-Finals Day in the T20. There he kept as well as ever, despite the handicap.

This summer, one assumes, Ben McDermott will keep in the one-day games, when he will undoubtedly fire our imaginations with batting of blistering quality. He could make the difference with the additional firepower that he has repeatedly shown in the Big Bash.

He will do well to match Daryn Smit behind the timbers though. If he does, we will have some player on our hands.

Congratulations on the new role, Daryn . I have every confidence that you will make a great job of it and look forward to following the academy fortunes under your tutelage. They will enjoy your easy, friendly manner, as the second team did last summer.

Go well, and thank you for some great memories.

Welcome back!

After an absence and holiday of over two weeks, Peakfan is back, ahead of a hectic year in which Derbyshire will celebrate their 150th anniversary as a club.

Happy 2020 everyone!

On social media today, the club has launched a search for its greatest-ever eleven. It is a fine and laudable project, though my caveat with this is the same as with any such polls. Social media is more often used by the young, therefore the results are heavily skewed by the better known , more recent players. I have seen several 'Best England side ever' polls, where the players were without exception from the last thirty years.

Was Graeme Swann really a better spinner than Hedley Verity, Jim Laker or Wilfred Rhodes? Was Alastair Cook better than Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton or Herbert Sutcliffe? It is easy to denigrate the efforts of players before World War One, and between the two wars. In many ways it was a different game, but good players were always good players and you can only be judged as being among the best of your time. A batting average of thirty pre-war, often on uncovered wickets, was likely the equivalent of forty-plus these days.

Thus, coming back to Derbyshire, Bill Bestwick must have been a fantastic bowler. With 1400 wickets at 21 he had to be, though for many today he is unknown. To take 147 wickets at 16, when he was 46 years old in 1921, was an extraordinary effort, needing outstanding skill, as well as a high level of fitness. He liked a pint or two, often enjoying them at lunch in the beer tent, but he could bowl. Usually did too, for a long time...

So too William Mycroft, back in the nineteenth century. He took 863 wickets with his left-arm pace for the county, at an average of only TWELVE. You could argue about the quality of wickets, and whether all of the opposition were particularly good cricketers, but cannot deny his eligibility to be considered in such an eleven.

I have already voted, and hope that a number of you do too. I would only urge you look at the records of those concerned, what they did for the team at that time and how they performed for the county on grounds of consistency and longevity.

Go to http://cricket.derbyshireccc.com/vote-for-your-greatest-derbyshire-xi/

In so far as my absence has been concerned, I haven't really missed anything. The Derbyshire players have done all of their fitness work and are now honing their techniques in the indoor school. I remain confident that the summer ahead will see us do well. Given good luck, the continued development of young players who have emerged and good fortune with injuries, this is a squad that will challenge.

To answer a question that I had a few times - do I think we should look at Aadil Ali, who has been released by Leicestershire, now Tom Lace has signed for Middlesex - I am not convinced.

He did alright at Leicestershire, but has reached his mid-twenties as a specialist, rather dour batsman and a highest score of only 80. I don't think he would be close to a one-day player and can't see him near a first-choice side. Maybe he would be decent cover for the RLODC, but I don't think we can offer full-time contracts for a few weeks of the summer. Were there money for such a thing, I would sooner have seen what Tom Wood could do, a deserving lad if there ever was one.

Given we have signed two quality overseas players and re-engaged Dominic Cork as T20 coach, I can't see there being lots of money being available. If there was, my suggestion would be someone better than we already have, not additional competition to what I regard a strong squad.

That's all for me for now. Starting this weekend, the first instalment of my interview with Tony Palladino, which I think you will enjoy!