Derbyshire v Kent day one

Derbyshire 351-2 (Jewell 152*, Came 89, Lloyd 50, Madsen 30*)

v Kent 

Wayne Madsen won the toss at Derby this morning, then sat with his pads on until the evening session, as his top order made hay while the sun shone.

David Lloyd and Caleb Jewell led off with a stand of 99 runs, which was followed by one of 196 by Jewell and Harry Came, as the visiting bowlers were put to the sword. It was a good toss to win, as little happened with the ball until the evening session and the second new one. Came was especially unlucky to be dismissed, run out at the non-striker's end as Jake Ball got a fingertip to a straight drive from Jewell.

Lloyd looked in very good touch and a leg side pickup for six was probably the shot of the day. He is always very easy on the eye and it is just a shame that sometimes the scorebook doesn't reflect the way he plays. What he and Jewell do, in this mode, is put the opposition under pressure and this was maintained throughout the day.

Came batted beautifully and it was nice to see the rhythm back in his batting, no doubt given  confidence after his second innings effort at Old Trafford. His feet moved well and he was looking set for a century when he was so cruelly dismissed. 

Yet today was really all about Caleb Jewell. Regardless of the numbers, this was his best innings, so far, for Derbyshire. It was the sort of knock that Chris Rogers, Michael di Venuto or Simon Katich might once have played, largely playing straight, secure in defence, assaying nothing overly ambitious but severe on any lapses of line and length. 

There were a few of them and 31 extras tells a tale of an untidy effort by the visitors, but Jewell batted beautifully throughout and crucially kept going. He might have gone in the afternoon session, when Matt Parkinson, who I felt bowled well in his early spell, thought he had him caught at short leg. There was a somewhat unedifying scene, as Parkinson made his feelings known to the umpire, which seemed to earn a rebuke to his captain and he wasn't quite so effective afterwards. 

I thought the Zimbabwe-born Nathan Gilchrist was the pick of the visiting bowlers and produced some of the day's best deliveries, but it cannot be a lot of fun, at 295-2, to see Wayne Madsen walking out to bat.

The skipper looked a little sketchy at the start, but was quickly into one-day mode as the score mounted against an understandably tired attack. He kept Jewell company as the Australian took his score to 150 and his season tally past 600 runs, a fine effort in his first county summer.

This was what I wanted to see from Caleb. We all knew he could bat, had wonderful timing and real power. What we learnt today was that he can harness those assets to considerable concentration. Ahead of the T20, where we all know he will excite if he gets going, he has shown county supporters why very good judges back home still feel he could be the answer to Australia's opening problem, especially when Usman Khawaja retires.

A few more innings like today will see people sitting up and taking notice.

An excellent effort by Derbyshire, with power to add more tomorrow. It doesn't, to be fair, look like the sort of pitch where we can blow Kent away after racking up 600, but tiredness and pressure can do funny things.Madsen will be able to set aggressive fields and it would seem, at the end of day one, that it would be difficult to lose this one. 

For a Derbyshire side to reach the halfway point of the red ball season, still unbeaten, would be quite remarkable.

Great stuff, lads!