Birmingham 203-7 (Hain 79*, McKiernan 3-39)
Derbyshire 207-4 (du Plooy 66*, Reece 57, Ali 48)
Derbyshire won by six wickets
They got them with three balls to spare. A club record T20 run chase
It was largely thanks to an astonishing captain's innings by Leus du Plooy, who came out of a bad trot with an extraordinary unbeaten innings of 66 from just 25 balls. For those of a certain vintage, his hitting and his confidence in it were reminiscent of Adrian Kuiper, another who knew as soon as a ball left his bat that it had gone the distance.
We needed 34 from the last two overs and du Plooy took England man Chris Woakes apart, leaving 14 from the last. A six from the first ball of Miles' last over from Guest made it a very gettable 8 from 5 and a no ball for above waist height with three deliveries left was hammered over extra cover for six by du Plooy, his fifth of the night.
Both sides were helped by the boundaries having been brought in a long way and Birmingham recovered from a slow start to post a challenging total, thanks to a fine innings by the uber-talented Sam Hain.
Mattie McKiernan bowled his best spell of the summer in taking three good wickets, the ball to dismiss Maxwell perhaps the delivery of his career. Watt also exerted control, but the seamers took some stick, even the reliable Khan in his final over.
204 looked a big ask, but Luis Reece and Haider Ali matched each other stroke for stroke and put on 95 in the first half of the innings. Ali look set for his second successive half century, before being dismissed in a strange fashion. He should have been stumped, thought the wicket keeper had missed the ball and started to run down the wicket again having first made his ground. It was all rather odd.
It was nice to see Reece back in something approaching his best form, but when he and Madsen departed in quick succession, the game looked up. The jubilation from the opposition when Wayne was caught on the long on boundary. suggested that they thought the game was won at that point.
Truth be told, so did I. Derbyshire sides have not historically chased down 58 from the last four overs, certainly not won the game with three balls to spare.
It was all quite remarkable, breathtaking, extraordinary even. The truth is that du Plooy is a quite superb batter when he plays in front of the wicket, as he did tonight. Only when he plays some of the more inventive, risky shots does he look more vulnerable.
Tonight was his night and that of Derbyshire. We are far from in the driving seat in the group, but remain one of eight sides in it with reason to think it might yet be possible. We just need to keep winning games in a group where most sides are managing to lose their share.
Nottinghamshire are next, but let's enjoy tonight.
Well played tonight …need to take the momentum and beat Notts …it’s been a while so why not on Friday ?
ReplyDeleteSuperb hitting from the skipper. Something we are much more used to seeing done to us rather than for us. It would be nice for a Friday repeat but we do seem to have a mental block against them.
ReplyDeleteI will readily hold my hands up and say that at the halfway point I thought we were out of it. We let Birmingham get more runs than we probably should have as the bowling fell away a little towards the end of the innings. That said, with Sam Hain striking the ball as he was it was going to be hard to restrict them to around 190.
ReplyDeleteEven when we got off to a good start in the chase it still felt like a big ask and we couldn’t afford many low scoring overs. Luis Reece played with more freedom than we have seen for a while and Haider Ali again looked good, but I still have no idea quite what he was doing for the wicket. Initially I wondered if he thought the ball was dead and was going down the wicket to say something to his partner, but given the speed with which he left his crease that seems unlikely. Only he will know! When Madsen came and went I feared the worse, and as the wickets fell quickly it seemed a collapse was inevitable, but step forward Leus du Plooy to play a captain’s innings. I was worried at the start of his innings when he played some very scratchy reverse shots that didn’t come off and on another day would probably have seen him dismissed. But once he put those shots away he never really looked back. The way he took on Chris Woakes in the penultimate over was magnificent and we could finally dare to believe that the night was going to be ours.
Sarah
Derbyshire, Derbyshire, Derbyshire why do you continue to baffle the hell out of us all. We have two batsmen, Luis Reece and Leus Du Plooy who before tonight couldn't muster any runs between them, so how can they suddenly become t20 blasters?, so baffling. Du Plooy's knock in particular was sensational, smacking the ball to all parts of the ground and fingers crossed this is the sign of things to come from our skipper. This was an excellent victory tonight, well done Derbyshire now let's go on a winning run
ReplyDeleteWe all know how destructive du Plooy can be when he removes the shackles, and last night he was sensational. Despite the excellent start by Reece and Ali, I also thought that we wouldn't be able to get past 200. After Madsen went cheaply, I thought, here we go, another collapse is on the way. But instead du Plooy led the charge in magnificent fashion.
ReplyDeleteCredit too to McKiernan for taking three wickets (all bowled).
This is the Derbyshire we want to see.
I think it must give us all great pleasure to be able to eat our words over Reece and du Plooy. We advocated dropping both after their poor runs and then Pow! A fantastic win and let's see if we can do the same to our old adversaries just up the road.
ReplyDeleteI cant be the only one who thought LDP was worryingly heading for the province known as "Godleman". His batting has been woeful and his captaincy questionable at best. His first few balls last night did nothing to change this few as he looked nervy and got away with a couple of awful selections. However once he got settled, this has to be one of his best knocks for us full stop. The way he took Woakes apart was simply sensational. What an innings. What a win. The table is simply bizarre so if ever there was a time to break our Notts hoodoo, this is it.
ReplyDeleteThis just shows how fine the margins are between success and failure. Reece and Du Plooy are 2 of our better players, but through a combination of bad luck (both potentially the recipients of bad umpiring decisions at Leicester) poor form and poor shot selection, there have been calls for them to be dropped. The problem with that being you would need to replace them with equivalent/better alternatives. Well, we don't really have any and last night showed that they are our best options.
ReplyDeleteGood to see McKiernan bowl well too, his wickets were vital. Short boundaries didn't help our (or their) bowlers and Hain is an excellent player, so although our bowling wasn't great at times, I wouldn't be too critical.
Let's hope we can show up on Friday, be great to beat Notts for once, especially on TV.