Middlesex v Derbyshire day 2

Middlesex 282 (White 120, Conners 3-65)

Derbyshire 201-9 (du Plooy 90, Dal 48, Bamber 4-37, Murtagh 4-60)

Derbyshire trail by 81 runs

A sage former Derbyshire cricketer told me last night that we had let the home side score fifty runs too many yesterday, in helpful conditions.

That came back to me today, as another anaemic batting performance in a season of them saw us struggle to pass 200 at the close with nine wickets down. This after bowling out our hosts for 282 before lunch.

White took his score to a fine 120 before edging the persistent Conners to Critchley at slip, while late shots from Walallawita suggested he might not long languish at ten in the order.

There were two wickets for Anuj Dal, who had a good day and later made a battling 48, his best of the summer by some distance. I like Dal, as a cricketer and a bloke, but the reality is that this Derbyshire squad is full of 'bits n pieces' players who don't do enough of any one thing to make a real difference. As a club, we have to aspire to more than that, because let's not forget we are playing matches now against the weakest teams in the country.

Only Luis Reece and Alex Thomson otherwise got into double figures and while both looked good in the middle, neither went on to anything resembling a good score.

The rest fell with uncertain pokes and prods to Messrs Murtagh and Bamber, with the exception of du Plooy, who looked on a different wicket to the rest.

When he plays his shots, like he did today, there are few better timers of a ball than Leus. The ball scorched to the boundary from mere pushes, although those boundaries were not distant. He looked in prime form and with Dal steered us to fleeting thoughts of first innings parity.

It was not to be, as a late clatter of wickets saw Conners and Aitchison required to nudge us to a batting point, a rare enough feat this summer to be noteworthy.

Prospects from here? Not good, I am afraid and unless our batsmen channel their vintage form, rather than batting like players of vintage, I fear another reverse in the coming days.