County cricket: Kent v Derbyshire day 2 report

Adam Riley picked up 4 wickets

An evening of cricket coaching tonight was a blessed relief from another awful day for Derbyshire. After the encouragement of yesterday, our batting showed the resilience of a jelly on a hot summer's day. Notwithstanding the odd ball that misbehaved, it was a pitiful effort.

Maybe, when we're looking at players to sign in the close season, we should look at Darren Stevens, because whenever he plays against us he turns into Garfield Sobers. If he doesn't score runs, he takes wickets; he must wish he could carry us around from ground to ground to play against.

I can't defend a limp display such as today, and I won't try. If heads went down after a late Kent rally, they really shouldn't have. We should have been capable of staying well in contention in this game, when the reality is that we will probably have lost it by lunch tomorrow.

That Kent chose to enforce the follow-on, even with the wicket taking increasing amounts of spin speaks volumes. They clearly didn't expect to have to bat again and nor are they likely to do so. A decent, but no more than that, attack simply tore us apart.

There have been some dark days for supporters this summer, one that has turned into an annus horribilis if there ever was one, but this was the nadir for me. I'm not convinced that we will score three hundred in an innings anytime soon, let alone force another win in current form. Heck, if you offered me 250 in our next match I'd snatch your hand off.

Awful. Truly awful. 

I'd best leave it at that for now.