Derbyshire v Nottinghamshire preview

We'd all love to be professional cricketers, wouldn't we?

Adored by your club's fans, a hero when you win the match with a key innings, a late boundary, a wicket or a fine spell. Heck, even a great catch can get you hero status.

Most of us have fantasised about it, but in those fantasies we always do well. We don't get first-ballers, or nick to slip, or play around a straight one.

Few of us get public condemnation in our workplace when things don't go as they should either. You mess up and your boss (presumably) doesn't put a post on social media saying you are rubbish at your job. Because the chances are, you're not. You just had a bad day. Any number of things can cause that, just as issues in the background can cause your overall performance as a sportsman to dip for a period of time. But it will still be between you and your boss.

So I want people to go easy on Billy Godleman. A terrific cricketer and a fine servant to Derbyshire in particular. He has scored thousands of runs across the formats at FIRST-CLASS level that most of us never got within a mile of and has skippered the side for a long time too.

Last year and this it has gone awry. Better men than I will be trying to figure out why, but it is right that Billy has been pulled from the firing line. There's no second team fixtures for him to play just now, so he turned out in league cricket at the weekend. I hope that the fast-approaching Royal London Cup sees him return to the form we have come to admire and respect over the best part of a decade. 

At the same time, Harry Came was deserving of opportunity to see if he has what it takes at first-class level and takes his place in the squad tomorrow at Derby. He will likely open with Luis Reece as Mickey Arthur names the following squad:

Came, Reece, Guest, Madsen, Du Plooy (c) Cartwright, Dal, Thomson, McKiernan, Aitchison, Potts, Scrimshaw, Conners

Nottinghamshire also name thirteen as they look to stretch their lead at the top of division two:

Hameed, Slater, Clarke, Duckett, James, Moore, Mullaney, Patterson-White, Fletcher, Pattinson, Paterson, Montgomery, Hutton.

I couldn't call the final elevens, but would be surprised if whoever wins the toss doesn't bat, on a day of anticipated serious heat.

Good luck to Leus Du Plooy, skipper for the game, in that and in his first-class debut as skipper. The home side are obviously very talented, but look less scary in this format, without Hales, Patel, Broad and Christian. Their seam attack is always a threat and carries way more experience than ours, but this Derbyshire side will, I think, acquit itself well.

We will find out soon enough.