Derbyshire travel to Canterbury for the final match and play Kent, who are bottom of the table. Mickey Arthur has announced a squad of thirteen, which includes Yusaf bin Naeem and Nick Potts, although having said he intends to play his strongest side, it seems likely that they will be sharing twelfth man duties on this occasion.
The likely Derbyshire side:
Reece, Donald, Came, Madsen, Guest, Basra, Dal, Andersson, Chappell, Aitchison, Morley
Wayne Madsen is forty short of a thousand for the summer, while Luis Reece is currently top wicket-taker in division two. Rory Haydon is missing with a side strain.
That is very different from the preview of the Derbyshire side on the Kent website, which I can only assume was written weeks ago, as there are so many inaccuracies. You may want to have a look yourselves here
As for Kent, they are skippered by Harry Finch, who had a few games for the Derbyshire second eleven a few summers ago. Mikey Cohen is also in the squad, as is Joey Evison, so there is a strong East Midlands flavour to their squad of thirteen, which reads:
Finch, Cohen, Compton, Curtiss, Dawkins, Jaydn Denly, Evison, Flintoff, Garrett, Parkinson, Rizvi, Singh, Stewart
The forecast looks good and there should be four days of cricket. If that is the case, I would like to think that Derbyshire have enough in the squad to overcome a young home side.
It would be nice to finish on a win and in third place, but we will take nothing for granted..
What do you think?
We travel strong for this one. I doubt many batters will fancy facing up to Reece and Aitchison, with Dal and Chappell to come. Aitchison is bowling beautifully currently and is loving life with the Duke, after his comeback with the Kookaburra. Kris
ReplyDeleteI know what you're saying, and they're doing OK, but I can think of plenty of batters that probably wouldn't mind!
DeleteWould like us to make room for Bin Naeem somewhere…though admittedly I’m not sure where.
ReplyDeleteFor Morley perhaps? Grant from Telford
DeleteWould like to think we are far stronger then Kent who are going through a very transitional period. Dawkins looks a very good young batter. But in general they do look a very weak team hence the bottom of the table position. We do badly need to finish with a win to help forget about the last couple of months of quite poor cricket
ReplyDeleteAn exact repeat of the May game would do nicely but someone other than Jewell will have to provide the double ton.
ReplyDeleteNo Potts and bin Naeem.
ReplyDeleteSum total of appearances for young players this season:
Potts (23): 1 t20 over and 3 50 over games
Hawkins (18): 1 4 day and 4 50 over games
Basra (23): 2 4 day and 6 50 over games
Haydon (22): 2 4 day and 5 50 over games
Wagstaff (22): 1 4 day game
Bin Naeem (19): 1 50 over game
No other side has failed to back their young players to this extent. To be honest only Hawkins and Bin Naeem can even be considered really young players and both should have played every 50 over game and these dead rubbers the last two rounds.
The previous game wasn't a dead rubber. However, i agree MA has missed opportunities to give youngsters chance to impress. Wagstaff has been treated poorly, in my opinion.
DeleteTo be fair, Mitch would have been a shoo-in for the one day cup, but got a season ending injury in the warm up match before it.
DeleteLike Bin Naeem and Basra, he needs to score heavily in the twos and be ready. Madsen can't go on forever and if the batters can convince the head of cricket that we can go with two overseas bowlers, that opens up another berth, after next year