A good news day!

Derbyshire will be announcing their squad tomorrow, for the visit to The Riverside to play Durham in a four-day red ball game.

The squad will be reinforced by the return from international duty of Mohammad Abbas, while Shoaib Bashir has been cleared to play by the ECB. Having not bowled in the Test match at Lord's, it would have made no sense for the off spinner to go into the second Test having not bowled in a match for almost a month.

The return of Abbas will be extremely welcome, though a potential selection dilemma is avoided, for now, by Zak Chappell being unavailable for this match, though a possibility for the Lancashire game at Chesterfield.

That should mean that Rory Haydon continues the excellent start to his county career. We are a day away from the announcement of the Derbyshire squad, but I would assume it will not be far away from this side that lines up at The Riverside:

Reece, Came, Montgomery, Jewell, Madsen, Andersson, Guest, Aitchison, Haydon, Bashir, Abbas.

Anuj Dal is currently playing in the second team fixture against Sussex at Denby, but his chances of an immediate recall after injury would appear slim, since they have managed only fifteen overs in three days. In that time Derbyshire managed 71-2, with Came and Wagstaff the men out. 

I suspect Mickey Arthur would want Nuj to have some match practice before returning to serious first team consideration. It would also be hard to fit him into a side that, lest we forget, has won its last two red ball matches before the start of The Blast. A look at the side above should confirm that particular challenge...

Moving on, thanks to Dean for sending me a link to a piece by Richard Gibson of The Mail, in which he said that Derbyshire and Leicestershire were both chasing the services of Fynn Hudson-Prentice. While this would presumably be from next season, the article suggested that Sussex might be amenable to letting go early any of Fynn, Danny Lamb, Tom Alsop and Tom Clark, as they have to shave half a million from their cricket budget.

It could just be newspaper talk, of course and there may be others chasing his services. Unless they pass in the revolving doors of promotion/relegation this September, the likelihood is that those two sides will be in division two next year. The chances of Derbyshire going up, at this stage however, appear better than those of Leicestershire staying there after a fairly wretched season so far.

I don't think anyone would be disappointed were Fynn to return, though there's a lot of seam bowling competition around these parts, especially with the Lazarus-like improvement in Nick Potts. I suspect that Derbyshire were set to release him at the end of this summer, but he appears to have found something extra under the tutelage of Chris Wright and has done very well in The Blast. He seems to have been around for years, but is still only 23, so time is very much on his side. 

It also highlights the merits of patience, because there were plenty writing him off after a couple of injury-hit summers. The words of Mickey Arthur in his latest interview on the club site suggest that he has played himself into a new deal, which is terrific. 

in fact seam bowling in Derbyshire appears to be alive and well under Wright, a canny operator over many years himself. Matthew Stewart, at 19, has been awash with wickets in the second team this year, having seemingly made the leap from the Academy set up with ease. I would expect him to be on the staff next year, while behind him are other top prospects.

Oldest among these is Jake Green, 18, who has just been selected for an England Invitational XI that will play against England Young Lions and South Africa Under-19s on June 26 and 27. I have seen him bowl a few times and he is another with plenty of potential, not just with the ball. His younger brother Lucas is also making a name for himself and was involved in The Bunbury Festival last summer. 

He is likely to be again, along with several other Pathway youngsters. This serves to highlight the excellent work being done by Daryn Smit and his staff and it would be great to see the decades-old Derbyshire tradition of seam bowling restored to its former glories.

It's fair to say we won't be whistling down any pits for them these days, but the modern route appears to have all the signs of bearing considerable fruit.

All that and there's also Harry Moore, who can hopefully return in 2027 and pick up his career where he left off. Harry might become a batter who bowls a bit, or could still emerge as a genuine all rounder, given greater luck with injury.

But like I said in the title, a good news day!