County Cricket: Money and the vicious circles

There have been a few comments over recent nights about our declining fortunes in T20. The end of that sentence could, in the eyes of most supporters, be read as ‘for the rest of the season’.

It is hard to see where we can get a win from here, especially as the vast majority of Karl Krikken’s squad have no form and a diminishing likelihood of finding it in the remaining weeks of the season. It would be stretching credibility to expect batsmen who have struggled for form to turn suddenly into prolific run machines, just as it is unrealistic to expect erstwhile innocuous bowlers at this level to start bowling teams out.

Indeed, the only way I could see Derbyshire do that is on an old-fashioned Derby green top, the problem then being that we would be unlikely to outscore the opposition anyway. On a good track, our bowlers have been shown to struggle at this level. Heads you lose…tails you lose.

One-day cricket perhaps presented our best chance of success this summer. You might be unable to dismiss a batsman, but a good ball is a good ball and should keep him quiet. Thinking back over our T20 losses, the bowling has done OK, but ten years into the competition, we still don’t chase targets well, only Madsen and Chanderpaul seemingly having the nous to keep the rate going against niggardly bowling. Seven an over isn’t that demanding at this stage of T20 development, but we struggle painfully to do it, with the recent poor results.

People will come to watch a successful team, as was proven with the capacity crowd for the Nottinghamshire game and the similar one for Yorkshire. Many will have seen three straight wins and thought that this was the year.

They were wrong. The two games gave us good income, though I’d wager that the club would have ideally preferred a strong walk-up for them, rather than pre-sales, as they would then have got more money. A recent correspondent said that the Board are only interested in attendances and to a point he is right, but such a comment fails to tell the full picture and does the people at the helm a grave disservice.

We need money to bring in better players, but the crowds will not turn up to watch a losing team. A club in Derbyshire’s situation has to be mindful of the pennies, but somehow the eminently capable people at the top have to find a way to bring a better class of player to the club without breaking the bank. Anyone any ideas on how? I doubt there’s too many players of an altruistic bent out there who would come to us and accept less money to do so. On the basis of this season, we’re at least one, probably two good batsmen short and at least two bowlers. Yet bringing in four people of the requisite standard would cost around £350K a year and still have no guarantee of success, as wealthy clubs like Surrey, Essex and Somerset have found this year.

Members might say that they’re making their contribution – and they are – but looking at the income figures from last year, membership fees pay for perhaps three players at our current rate. There’s a sobering thought for you, even after last winter’s membership drive…

There’s no easy fix. Perhaps we need to be more tolerant of failure, especially while our younger players are coming through and appreciate that the players we have will have as many poor days as good, especially at this level, especially at this stage of their development. Maybe our expectations were unrealistic after last summer’s giddy heights, maybe we could have been better prepared, maybe some things could have been done differently.

The key, for the remainder of the season and in the future will be in making the whole better than its constituent parts, in making team Derbyshire a tougher nut to crack by motivating eleven players to deliver one hundred per cent in every single game, even when the chips are down. It was that kind of leadership, from on and off the pitch, that won us the championship in the 1930s; that made Eddie Barlow’s Derbyshire a real handful and that made last year’s title-winning side the best we have had in ten years or more. It was all for one and one for all – and performances illustrated the strong team ethic, with hard fought draws and tight wins in the mix, all of it indicative, of course.

One of the biggest steps that Andy Murray made to tennis domination was in controlling his body language. When things got tough, his demeanour made it obvious he was struggling and his head went down. He’s conquered that now and some of our players need to realise that in doing so, opponents will tune into their struggles and redouble their efforts.

It has all gone flat, like last week’s opened lemonade and rekindling that passion, fire and team spirit will be a good start, whether there’s money for winter improvements or not.

Postscript – Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge tomorrow night in the T20. I have to say I am not hopeful, especially as we are likely to be missing both overseas players.

Well worth a watch tomorrow, but unlikely to have a happy ending, methinks…battle to the end though, boys.