Holiday thoughts

I didn't see too much of the Hampshire game, as we are on holiday. 

Derbyshire won, but it was effectively a game within a game. Hampshire had to win in a limited timescale and we should not ignore the likelihood that the result would have been very different had they not needed to do so. 

Once again the Derbyshire batting was good, Andersson outstanding, Came and Guest impressive. I would like to see Harry convert more of his half centuries into tons, because 28 times he has gone past fifty and failed to do so. 'Drink at the well' as George Gunn liked to say. When the sun is high and the outfield fast, make hay and make the bowlers toil...

I remain staggered that we didn't do more in the One Day Cup to promote the cause of the work going on in our pathway. It was the ideal opportunity to do so and going with our strongest side didn't turn out too well, did it?  We won two matches that we really should have done, given the opposition, then another when the opponents were shackled by the need to score the required runs far more quickly than we had - Duckworth Lewis gone wild, if you will. 

I am also puzzled. I have heard reports from several people that the chairman stood up at the members meeting and said that the club's stance was that the One Day Cup was a development competition and was to be approached accordingly. Yet Mickey Arthur, in his end of tournament interview, said that 'as long as I'm here we will pick our best team' and try to win the silverware. 

If the chairman said what he did - and I have only anecdotal evidence of this that others there might verify - then it suggests a major difference of opinion, which cannot bode well.

As I wrote recently, my concern is that the youngsters coming through the Pathway need to see a route of progression. Their parents certainly do. Is cricket, specifically Derbyshire cricket, a bona fide career path? Or are they just going to be chucked on the 'scrap heap' at 19/20. 

To hear Mickey Arthur talk about 'our young players' is akin to me of someone scraping their nails down a chalkboard. Nick Potts isn't 'young' at 24, Martin Andersson certainly isn't at 29. Matt Stewart is, at 19 but he never got a game. Joe Hawkins is too, but got a call only when the wolves started circling about a lack of opportunity among the club support. That Mitch Wagstaff, at 22, only got a late call up suggests to me that a decision is already made on his future. Meanwhile, yes, Yusuf Bin Naeem had a few games, but why not take pressure off the lad, tell him he was in for the tournament and batting three? Where he normally does, lessening the pressure and giving him a chance to shine? 

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to learn about Ross Whiteley and Wayne Madsen. It appeared that we could go without an overseas player, but then we needed one, so he 'made himself available'. Seriously, what is going on? 

My honest (and irreversible) opinion, like it or not, is that after coaching at elite level for years, Mickey Arthur doesn't 'get' young players, their pressures and the challenges in coming through. In his interviews he always talks about 'reflecting' but surely he cannot do that and consider many of his calls the correct ones? And shouldn't an 'elite' coach be getting these calls right, first time? 

He talks of not being clear enough with 'death' plans. Lads, chuck it in the block hole, wide or otherwise, still the hardest ball to hit. Mix up your pace and if you are going to bowl short, do so to the long boundary. There you go....

What does Mickey say to Matt Stewart, who has taken wickets in the Derbyshire Premier League and in the second team, when we offer a short term deal to a lad whose only real difference is in taking less wickets bowling with the other arm? Don't get me wrong, I hope Will Rogers does well, but at 23 he is the product of another club's system. At what point do we think about the impact of such a decision on those coming through our own? Any arguments about not having the money to offer a short-term deal to a young player have been blown out of the water. 

Again, is 23 young? For what it is worth, if shooting yourself in the foot were an Olympic sport, Mickey Arthur might just have become undisputed gold medalist...

I played cricket, coached youngsters and selected teams for well over forty years. Not once did I think 'he isn't taking wickets in the twos...I know, I will put him in the first team, instead of the lad who is. 

I know for sure that there would have been disparaging comments had I done so and deservedly so. 

I hope there are big conversations about these things going on at board level. More than almost anything else at the club, this concerns me right now. With as rich a crop of young talent as we have had in years currently coming through our Pathway, we have to make sure that the person at the top - regardless of name or reputation - actually realises the enormity of some of these actions.

If he doesn't, the long term cost and damage to the club, reputationally and otherwise, is far greater than paying him off.