County Championship: Middlesex vs Derbyshire Day 2 Review

It can be said without fear of contradiction that Derbyshire did very well to get themselves back into the game at Lord’s yesterday.

With Middlesex 180-6 at the close of play, 51 runs behind, the game is pretty even, although the home side’s seventh wicket pair has perhaps got them into a slight position of ascendancy. We will know more today and I would suggest that the first session is a pivotal one for the match.

Good teams, when they get into these situations, come out on top more often than not. If Derbyshire can remain ahead after the first innings are completed, they will be delighted. Even if they are no more than fifty behind, they are still in the game with the home side to bat last. Our season will be defined by how well we do when we get into such good situations: capitalise on them and success will come; squander them with loose bowling, poor fielding or bad batting and we will be fighting the drop for sure.

The bowlers deserve great credit for their efforts, with wickets shared out evenly. It makes it somewhat ironic that the same correspondents who suggested we would struggle for wickets at this level now claim bowling is our stronger suit. Frankly, I’m not sure how they can tell, after two innings either way so far.

One thing is for sure. If the bowlers do their stuff today, we have to bat much better second time around. We gave away two wickets to run-outs in the first innings, there were a few loose shots and few could claim to have been dismissed by fine bowling. Our score was probably 50-60 short of par, but full credit to Tim Groenewald and Mark Turner for getting us to a semi-respectable 231. For a second game running, our last pair took us to a fair tally.

We cannot rely on ten and jack to do that all the time, but there’s some nonsense being spouted by some people regarding our ‘negative’ approach to batting. It is a lot easier to play your shots on a true track where the ball comes on, than on those where it is slow and offering assistance to the bowlers. If Billy Godleman made 50 in a day’s batting on a good track in August, I would lead a chorus of condemnation. But credit where it’s due for yesterday. He had the technique and concentration to stay in and battle and you can’t do that in the pavilion or from the boundary edge. Give me a gritty fifty over a breezy twenty any day (okay, perhaps not in a T20).

I don’t think for a minute that we’re intimidated by top tier bowling, but when the conditions allow it, we should continue to be unafraid to play fearless cricket. That’s not carte blanche to swing the bat like it’s last ball in the T20 either, but backing your judgement and playing shots to the right ball. This is a track where playing across the line is fraught with danger and playing straight the likeliest route to success. Short boundary or no, I can’t see anyone smacking a run a ball century on this wicket, but I hope not to see slip catching practice given from careless shots.

We could still win this match, but could equally easily lose out with indiscipline. In two games so far, we have been a match for two good sides, yet that’s some distance removed from being good enough to beat them. Today will be a fascinating day of cricket, one I would love to be able to see in person.

One thing is for sure. By Saturday, I think we will have a much clearer idea of our championship prospects for the summer and they will be defined by these eleven men at Lord’s.