Hello Greg...adieu to Paul

As one door opens, another one closes...

That's what it seems like at Derbyshire today, as two sons of well-known fathers go in opposite directions at the 3AAA County Ground.

For Greg, son of Dominic Cork, the next two years presents an opportunity for him to emulate a legend. A tough gig, however you look at it. Cork senior was abrasive, brash and confrontational, but above all else he was a terrific cricketer. With bat and ball, he never backed down and almost from the day that he made his senior debut he 'belonged'.

Greg is an obviously different player, not just because he bowls with a different hand, but his potential is considerable and the biggest pressure will be that of expectation. It would be unwise, perhaps unrealistic, to expect too much too soon but the signs are that junior Cork has the skills for first-class cricket. Time will tell if he has the strength of character that is so crucial to continued development.

I wish him well, as all fans of the county will do.

As one well-known name reappears on county team sheets, another departs. Tony Borrington gave admirable service to the county over a ten-year career that started when he was 23 years old. 'Gritty' was perhaps the apposite word for his batting style, though it should not be forgotten that he was the second Derbyshire player to make a forty-over century, after the similarly attritional Alan Hill. They had the shots, as Neville Cardus wrote of a Yorkshire player of earlier vintage, but didn't always choose to play them...

There are ironies in the release of Paul Borrington (pictured). Despite being only 26, he is on his ninth season in and around the Derbyshire staff, give or take a few when he rarely played because of university commitments. Having made his debut at seventeen, there was a long time when he barely seemed big enough for first-class cricket. Nottinghamshire's James Taylor would look like a basketball star alongside the younger Bozz and that lack of height, weight and muscle saw him exposed far too early at first-class level.

There was no one else, of course, so Paul opened the batting and worked the ball around, successes and failures shared as they are for any player. He usually did well at The Oval and shared some important stands with Martin Guptill in our championship summer of 2012. There were several occasions when he was going well, only to be stymied by a freak dismissal, while an extra fourteen runs to go with that unbeaten 86 at Leicester this summer could have been a catalyst. We'll never know, at least in Derbyshire colours.

I always felt he should have played more one-day cricket, as his ability to find the gaps and work the ball around were as acute as almost anyone in the side. Rotation of the strike has not always been a strong suit for Derbyshire batsmen but Bozz did it well. The perception of him as a one-paced opener was hard to kill though, at least in some quarters.

I've been a strong supporter of the lad, not just because of his impeccable attitude and unfailing pleasantness, but because his technique was as good as any of recent vintage. So too his mental toughness, something that those who haven't faced new ball bowlers spitting fire and pithy comments will know little about. The bottom line was that, for all of the above, he never quite cemented his place in the side with weight of runs. 

At 26, the writing was on the wall, as the club ceased to get ECB funding for him as a home-raised product. He may yet, but at another county, prove himself a late developer and realise the talent that has always been there at first-class level. He wouldn't be the first or last to do that, but wherever his future lies it will be successful, because his attitude is right. He's had his critics, most notably on another 'fan' site, but he always gave his best for the club and no one can expect any more.

My undying image of the lad will be flying through the air to hold a brilliant catch that heralded the Hampshire collapse on the last day at Derby in 2012. We'll gloss over the swirler he put down moments later, but Paul saved plenty of runs in the field and was a fast and safe member of the fielding unit.

I wish him well, as I am sure we all do. I don't blame Graeme Welch for his decision and the revolution is underway. Our need for at least one established opening batsman is patently obvious, the role of local junior partner looking set, at this stage, to be offered to Ben Slater, a good friend of Paul's who will doubtless miss him around the place.

Thanks Bozz - that wicket was always sold dearly and a lot of us valued that.

Monday musings

An inauspicious beginning to the CLT20 for Martin Guptill today, run out without facing a ball as his team, Auckland, went down by two runs to the Kolkata Knightriders. Without that they would probably have won, as they did well to restrict a side with plenty of talent to just 121. He will have another opportunity tomorrow, as his side face Somerset.

Elsewhere, Akhil Patel has been released by Nottinghamshire. Patel looked a player of talent when I saw him for Derbyshire Seconds, but is not the first and won't be the last to be in the shadow of a father or sibling. He is still young enough to get another deal, but needs to cement undoubted talent to a weight of runs when opportunity presents itself.

There's still not too much in the way of news of released players, but of the ones I have seen, someone who perhaps has a case for a chance elsewhere is Naqaash Tahir at Warwickshire. At 28 next season his age is perhaps against him, but the player's record suggests ability, even if injuries have affected him over the years. He bowls with decent pace and Graene Welch said that there was "nothing he can't do with a ball in his hand". Apart from paint, perhaps....

139 wickets at 29 is no bad record, ten times having taken four in an innings, but whether the lad gets another chance elsewhere is debatable. Time will tell, once again. There may yet be a cull from Yorkshire but most counties retain players on contracts until October, so some retained lists may take a while yet. Our northern neighbours may release players to finance more coming in, but seem to need some of their 'names' to perform with greater frequency than was the case in 2011.

I came across an interesting piece from Chris Adams, who has done a fine job in turning Surrey around. He said that, given the requisite level of ability to be on a county staff, the most important factors for individual success were, in order:

Character - determination and a willingness to be a part of and contribute to the team
Strength of mind - powerful and able to focus on their game
Natural talent

I find that interesting, although once again the history of the game is littered with examples of gifted individuals who didn't make it, while journeymen professionals carved out successful careers. No names, of course...

In closing, thanks to all of you for your continued e-mails and comments. I got a good one earlier today which referred again to my ratings of players for the season. The writer suggested that my score for Matt Lineker was unfair, as the player had the additional pressure of only three matches in which to prove himself yet managed to do so.

It is a fair comment and I'm inclined to think that another year it is unfair to rate any player who plays less than five matches. I would also agree that Lineker had a tough task. He scored a thousand runs in the Second XI and another thousand for Ockbrook and Borrowash. He could have been forgiven for easing up there, but it is to his great credit that he retained both his intensity and appetite for runs.

In his last three seasons for the club he has amassed 3,900 runs. Throw in those second team runs and that is 5,000 runs in three summers. Not bad, huh?

None of the wickets he played on when he made the senior side could be called straightforward. Certainly Chelmsford and The Oval were tricky, while the County Ground offered lift and movement for the bowlers, despite two good first innings totals. Yet those who saw his first innings against Kent were impressed by his composure.

In the circumstances Matt Lineker did a very good job, though in the light of the above we probably shouldn't be too surprised. I would genuinely like to see him given an extended opportunity next year to make a place his own, ideally accompanied by the "Derbyshire Bradman", Paul Borrington. Bozza has scored 3,200 runs in the last two summers at Ticknall. Fourteen fifties and fourteen hundreds in 53 innings. Sooner, rather than later, two players who are capable of that must be able to make the next step. They just need the extended opportunity that has gone the way of others.

I accept that there is a chance that two players of relative inexperience may face challenges, that there is a possibility that one, or both, may not make it. Yet based on their respective records in high standard cricket, there is a better chance that they might. We need to know how good they can be at the earliest opportunity and not spend the next few years wondering "what if?"

In the 140 years of their history, Derbyshire have never had two young players with such impressive records in local and Second XI cricket. If they come through, we have an opening partnership for the next ten years.

If they don't, at least we've given them a try. That has surely got to be worth a shot.

Congratulations to Borrington

Despite marking him down as a five in the end of season marks, I feel this is an opportune moment to pay tribute to an outstanding season by Paul Borrington.

Perhaps, of all the marks, Bozza's is the one most worthy of revision. He only had the two end of season matches, as I pointed out, but he was the only player to make runs - good runs against a promoted side in an important match - on a pitch that became far from easy to bat on.

Today he made his NINTH century of the season for Ticknall and finished with 1668 runs and an average close to 100. By any standards that is a remarkable effort and I suspect that the new aggregate he has set will stand for many years.

It is easy, as Master Villain suggests tonight, to decry the performance that it was 'only' against league bowling, but that is a long way from the truth. No other Derbyshire player, with the exception of Matt Lineker, has come to terms with the bowling in the Premier League. Even Wes Durston, our player of the year, had his struggles, while others had only sporadic success.

Chesney Hughes? He scored just 87 runs in nine innings for Sandiacre, which works out at less than ten runs per innings...

Borrington's feat is extraordinary and he has won an award for being the top scoring league batsman in the country. That has never gone to a Derbyshire batsman before and is a reflection on a season of excellent personal achievement. His success has been the result of an excellent technique married to increasing power of stroke.

I have every confidence that he will continue to work at his game and next season I hope to be able to report on a season of senior success for him.

Don't bet against it.

Bozza signs for three years

Call me Psychic Peakie, but after writing about Paul Borrington and a likely contract last night, it was today announced that he has signed a new three-year deal.

Borrington has suffered from being introduced to county cricket at 17 when he was marginally wider across the shoulders than a garden cane and with roughly the same strength. He got a chance because we were a poor side and there was simply no one else. Gradually he has filled out and this season has been desperately unlucky to miss out on first team chances after an early season injury. Compare him, if you will, with Ben Slater, another batsman of talent who could get a first team chance in the next couple of years at 21/22. Five years older, without a burden of expectation to weigh him down, physically stronger and emotionally ready.

Eight centuries in the Premier League, a new record, suggest that Borrington is scoring more quickly these days. Less Paul the Prodder than the Ticknall Tornado, Bozza the Blaster. He'll probably never be mistaken for Gordon Greenidge, but you take my point. Only time will tell if he can translate a very sound technique and increasing power to the county game, but if he does so it HAS to be at Derbyshire. We should never have released Wayne White and he continues to thrive at Leicester - it would be galling if he had done the same elsewhere.

 Now we will see what he can do at Derbyshire. Next season could be for him what this year has been for Redfern, Whiteley and Knight. I'm delighted for the lad and remain confident that he can be a good county cricketer, a key component of a Derbyshire side that is effectively Academy-reared.

Funnily enough, last night I went into the garden and enjoyed half an hour after the game on a garden bench with Mrs P. We enjoyed hearing a lone blackbird sing and the sight of a plant that has done relatively little for the past five years flourishing and in full bloom. It has had plenty of encouraging foliage in the past, but the flowers we expected failed to appear.

This spring we dug out a load of soil that was holding it back and replaced it with fresh stuff; compost and plenty of feed to encourage it, which seems to have given it a new lease of life. Even the small flowers and plants around its base have a new lease of life and seem to be more vibrant than we have known them before.

When you think about it, the comparisons with the County Ground and Academy are quite remarkable...

Fantasy stuff

Here's a couple of posers for you in your (imaginary) job as Derbyshire's cricket supremo.

You are coming to the end of the season and have two 23 year old players. Both are technically very good and are strong mentally, though not powerful physically at this stage of their careers.

Player A has played 7 games, 11 innings, 133 runs average 12.09

Player B has played 26 games, 42 innings, 1109 runs average 29.97

Resources mean you have to sack one of them, but you can give a three-year contract to the other. Who do you sack? Player A, presumably?

Having sorted that one, next you have two 21 year old players to consider. Both are 'flair players' with a lot of natural ability that can see them perceived as a bit rash or careless at times.

Player A has played 58 games, 82 innings, 1606 runs average 22.30

Player B has played 39 games, 64 innings, 1740 runs average 29.00

Again, you have to sack one player and give the other a three-year contract. Once again, I would suggest on record you would sack player A.

Congratulations. In the first example above, you have just sacked Chris Rogers and given a three-year deal to Paul Borrington. In the second, you sacked Kim Barnett and gave Dan Redfern a three-year deal...

That's young cricketers for you and why I feel too many give them a raw deal. If you want more examples:

At the age of 24, Chris Adams was averaging 27
At the age of 22, John Morris was averaging 27
At the age of 23. Eddie Barlow was averaging 28
At the same age, Peter Bowler was averaging 25. So was Martin Guptill.
At the age of 24, Greg Smith was averaging 22
At the age of 22, one of our greatest batsmen, Denis Smith, was averaging just 13...

If you want to go outside the county, Graham Gooch averaged 24 when he was 23 and Mark Butcher 23 when he was 22. Yet still we moan about under-achievement!

Reading about Ross Whiteley's (pictured) knock for the Seconds yesterday (65 not out from 37 balls against a decent Lancashire attack with first team experience) heightened my feeling that he is potentially our most destructive young player since Ian Blackwell. At 22 his first team statistics are not overly impressive (17 average with the bat and just one wicket) but I have always been impressed by his clean hitting and feel his bowling can come on still further. He has a tendency to drop one down leg side regularly, but that's just a case of grooving the action a little more. He can swing it and with experience will gain in confidence.

Others, like Ben Slater, Hamza Siddique and Tom Poynton are showing enough flashes of talent to warrant genuine optimism, Poynton batting four and aggressively for the Seconds and keeping wicket with great style (and no little vocal talent!)

But you can't expect perpetual brilliance from kids. Why, Dean Jones only averaged 33 when he was 21, and Michael di Venuto 34 when he was 22. They were/are exceptional players, yet in average not massively ahead of Redfern and Borrington at a comparable stage.

It makes no sense whatsoever, on any level, to cut ties with young players of that age. They make money for the club on each appearance until they are 26 and if they've not done it by then, fair enough. Socially, emotionally, physically and technically few are really cutting it before 23 or 24 anyway. Playing cricket for your livelihood is massively different to playing with your mates at the weekend and when some of those on the boundary edge go into print saying you're a waste of space (or worse) it can't be easy. I've had bad days in my working life, but no one has ever gone onto a web site that evening and told the world about it. That's a crucial difference.

A contributor the other night suggested that the players were well rewarded. I understand that the young summer contract players at Derbyshire are on around £1,000 for playing in July and August, after their University commitments. Throw in their gear and its a good deal for a student - a world better than slaving away in a fast food outlet, but not exactly Rockefeller standard. Ross Whiteley is probably on less than £5K for his summer deal and will have earned that back for the club from his appearances this summer. Borrington and Redfern will probably be on less than £20K is my guess, but next year, with under 22s likely to attract £2,500 per game and under-26s earning the club £2,000 per appearance I expect both to feature heavily.

Returning to the early theme of this post, what would you do? Pay Greg Smith £70-80K to keep him at Derbyshire? We've already invested a lot of money in Smith and he's still technically an overseas player costing us more each time he plays. Critics would suggest he's only had two really good summers and that if he was going to re-sign he would have done so by now. They might also suggest that the player has used Derbyshire as a convenience, retaining his South African citizenship despite opportunities to qualify much more quickly.

Or do we accept that he's going and invest time, opportunity and much less money in Ross Whiteley, giving him a three-year deal and encouraging him to go out there, confident that his place is secure to play his natural game? During that time he will bring in money each time he steps onto the pitch. I'm genuinely confident that the lad could take that number six berth and make it his own, just as I am that Poynton will be a very good wicket-keeper batsman for Derbyshire for years when Luke Sutton takes a step back.

From a purely financial angle, playing Hughes, Redfern, Borrington, Knight/Needham, Whiteley and (maybe) Poynton next year would bring in enough money to finance a top overseas player. You could notionally go with this side

Madsen, Borrington, Hughes, Durston, Redfern, Whiteley, Sutton/Poynton, Clare, Groenewald, Palladino, Knight/Needham

You'll note that side includes Tim Groenewald, who I think will stay, and doesn't include an overseas player. The identity and skills of that person are as yet unknown, so there's no point putting someone in for the sake of it.

A young side? Yes, but improving. Last year we came bottom with an experienced one AND lost £180K. How we do with this one is open to conjecture, but we wouldn't do worse - and would at least balance the books.

For me, as Chris Grant is poised to unveil his plans to the Derbyshire committee, it is the way forward. Karl Krikken, responsible for the emergence of these youngsters, would play a major part in the future too, working alongside an overseas player/coach. He knows the players, they respect him to a man, there's experience and exciting talent side by side and this would prepare us for cricket in the long term, as a club run to an effective business model that would be one for others to emulate.

It's the way forward all right. The DERBYSHIRE way.

Monday musings

I’m well aware of the difference between even high quality league cricket like the Derbyshire Premier League and the first class game, but weekend events in the game between Chesterfield and Ticknall are worthy of note from a county perspective.

In that game Paul Borrington reeled off an apparently brilliant unbeaten 143, his fifth ton of a prolific summer for Ticknall which has given him an average of Bradmanesque proportions, a staggering 168 from just eight innings. His innings contained fourteen fours and four sixes, suggesting that the old accusation of a player unable to force the pace is no longer valid.

Borrington suffered the unluckiest of injuries pre-season that ruled him out of matches in which he might well have been expected to play. Now of course, the surfeit of T20 in the next month makes it unlikely he will force his way into the side until July at the earliest. Even the seconds are playing smack and giggle stuff all month, an environment hardly conducive to making a case for inclusion at a higher level.

But what then? Borrington is an opening batsman – a specialist position – and in his way are our most prolific batsman in Wayne Madsen and our overseas player, Martin Guptill. We could, of course move Madsen to number five, where he does so well in one-day games, but who do you drop? Hughes, Durston, Smith and Redfern have all done well so far and none of them deserve to miss out on current form.

When we are considering options for next season, however, I hope that the path of a young, locally reared player like Borrington isn’t blocked. Martin Guptill is a fine player with a growing reputation in the game, but the likelihood of him being here after this year is slim, given the congestion of the international calendar. Borrington, however, is potentially a Derbyshire player for the next ten years and it would be a shame to see him have to move elsewhere for greater opportunity after the years he has been at the club. We have, after all, seen Wayne White make a success of such a move, while I’m still minded of young off-spinner Bob Swindell who showed promise but had his path blocked by the signing of Venkat many moons ago.

Some will say that Borrington hasn’t made the most of opportunities thus far, which is fair, but he’s rarely had the chance to bat in his preferred position (some bloke called Rogers…) and needs more than a game or two here and there. My understanding is that his current contract is to the end of next season and it would be to everyone’s advantage if he had the opportunity to show what he can do between times.

In six years since his debut in 2005 he has just 42 first-class innings to his name, some of them for Loughborough UCCE. An average of a shade under 30 is no disgrace and the signs are that he is ready for an extended run that could just be the making of him. It may well not happen this season, but I'd certainly like to see him given the chance to make the position his own next year. In between times he can only keep scoring runs at every opportunity, work on his technique and enjoy a spell where it would appear he could get runs with Geoff Boycott's proverbial 'stick o' rhubarb'.

In a normal match such an innings as he played on Saturday would be a match-winner, but an extraordinary knock of 131 from 65 balls by James Pipe stole the show. Pipe’s innings contained 19 fours and 9 sixes, which means that he only ran one single before, with delightful irony, he was run out, presumably having forgotten he could do…

Such an innings, not his first of the season, highlights something we have missed over the past couple of seasons, a lower order player who can take the game away from the opposition in a short space of time. Luke Sutton is a fine cricketer who will give 100% at all times and is at least Pipe’s equal behind the timbers, but he is unlikely to turn a match with dazzling stroke play and the launching of a counter attack. He will always sell his wicket dearly though and has made an excellent contribution already this season.

In closing tonight, the T20 division is starting to take shape, with Lancashire top and Nottinghamshire second. That makes our tie on Friday night the more laudable, while the loss to Nottinghamshire was hardly something new. There are games coming up that are winnable and our campaign is far from over, irrespective of what happens against Durham in next weekend’s double-header. I maintain that we’re not too far away from winning games and I disagree that the lack of a second overseas role will cost us. Looking at who sides have brought in and what they have done so far, it is hard to argue with Chris Grant.

Our success will be more a case of what our overseas player does. If Martin Guptill plays a few major innings, rather than attractive twenties, we will win more matches than we lose, as he is a naturally quick scorer. If he doesn’t, I suspect that the win/loss ratio will be less favourable, simple as that. While Botha and Vaas at Northamptonshire, Voges and Hussey at Nottinghamshire and Van der Merwe at Somerset have done well, there’s a few under-achievers at present.

Let’s hope it stays that way when we play them.

A cautionary word...

I've had a call from a pal at our village club tonight who saw the information on Robin Peterson on cricinfo earlier today. He's a South African himself and is regularly jetting between the two countries and keeping abreast of information on South African cricket.

He told me that the Peterson deal may not be accurate and that the newspaper concerned has a reputation for getting things wrong. If one newspaper prints something, the feed goes out through agencies and all of a sudden, rightly or wrongly, there's a factual story.

Maybe there's no smoke without fire, but for now I've pulled my Peterson piece. There'll be plenty of time for that when the news is OFFICIALLY announced through the club site, but until then I'm going to err on the side of caution, just in case this is a poor piece of journalism.

Good news, however from Perth, where Paul Borrington is playing for Midland Guildford in Western Australia. Last weekend, in the first innings of a 2 day match that continues this weekend, he batted at number three and was last man out for 70 in a score of 140 all out. For a young man on different tracks in a country a long way from home that is an impressive debut. An early example of what you can do takes a lot of pressure off a new player at any club and Paul will benefit from this excellent start.

More to the point, if he comes back from Australia with his confidence high and his reputation enhanced, so will we.

Look on the bright side. Only 137 sleeps until April...

G'day Bozza!

Nice to read on the club site that Paul Borrington is off to Perth this winter to play for Midland Guilford, the club where Alec Stewart played with success. With Simon Katich, Tom Moody and Brendan Julian as former players he is obviously off to a good standard of cricket which can only be of benefit to him as he prepares for an important season in 2010.

Bozza has had a stop/start career with the club so far due to his studies at Loughborough University. Having now finished there, he is able to play cricket full time and was rewarded with a contract to 2012 by John Morris for some encouraging performances.

In 29 first class innings for Derbyshire and Loughborough UCCE he has managed two centuries and four fifties for a very respectable average of just under 35. He appears well balanced at the crease and nothing seems to faze him unduly. He is slight of build but not, by any means small at 5'10". An early reputation as a "sticker" with limited strokes has seen him play little one day cricket, but the signs are there that he is starting to go for his shots a little more after encouragement from John Morris. Indeed, a century for Loughborough last season saw him score 80-odd before lunch, pretty good going by any standards.

He comes from good cricketing stock of course, with his Dad, Tony a fixture in the Derbyshire side in the 1970's. At times Tony could look a good player and played some fine innings for the club, but never with quite the frequency to set him apart as a very good county cricketer. He was a similar height to Paul, but my memory suggests he was of sturdier build. He and Harry Cartwright were the young players in Eddie Barlow's era, both of them capable of batting with aggression, but also digging in when required. Tony managed three first class centuries for the club with another one day ton, something that his son will hope to pass, if only for bragging rights!

At this stage Paul looks a genuine prospect but next year is a big one for him. Free from studies, he can devote his energies to becoming the real deal and with the new quotas on age group players he will start the season as a favourite for a regular place.

Although an opening batsman, it is more likely (for me) that he will bat three for Derbyshire in 2010 as we have what looks like a tremendous pairing of Madsen and Rogers "up top". That could mean that Garry Park drops to five and leaves Greg Smith at four with Redfern at six, but it's all hypothetical at this stage.

A good winter in Australia should set him up nicely and I look forward to reporting on his form as the winter progresses.