County Cricket: Derbyshire v Worcestershire T20 preview

Matt Higginbottom

Were I to be granted a listen to Graeme Welch's iPod, I reckon there would be a couple of old classics on there at the moment.

Changes by David Bowie and The Young Ones by good old Cliff Richard might be getting air on rotation, by the look of the squad that has been chosen for tomorrow night's game against Worcestershire Rapids, a name that sounds more at home in US soccer circles or something similar.

There may be a senior debut for Greg Cork and a start for Matt Higginbottom as Graeme Welch rings the changes for tomorrow's game. Mark Footitt, so crucial to our hopes of climbing the table in the County Championship, is rested, along with David Wainwright, while Tim Groenewald also sits it out. From those named, I'd be inclined to omit Mark Turner and see how the youngsters get on, though Higginbottom could miss out if the coach opts for a more experienced man. For what it is worth, this would be my batting order:

Stephen Moore                                            
Marcus North                                           
Scott Elstone                                              
Tom Knight
Wayne Madsen
Alex Hughes
Wes Durston
Gareth Cross                                                 
Tony Palladino                                
Greg Cork
Matt Higginbottom/Mark Turner   

Knight's place in the order should be fluid, but we'd have a chance to score quickly in the Power play with this line up. North is probably the best batsman (at least in this format) and you really want such a player to have the most available time to bat. He opened with great success in the past winter so it wouldn't be a major change for him, while there's plenty of batting lower down to repair things if it went awry, with Durston, Cross and Palladino around with experience at the death.

Cork will get a chance to show his all-round talents in good time and will doubtless rise higher in the order as his career progresses, but it would make for an interesting evening seeing how a young bowling attack cope with a strong Worcestershire side.

Saeed Ajmal is the obvious threat in the attack, but with big-hitting Kiwi Colin Munro as second overseas player in a batting line-up that contains former County Ground favourite Ross Whiteley, we will undoubtedly start as underdogs.

Their squad:

Daryl Mitchell, Richard Oliver, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Colin Munro, Alexei Kervezee, Ross Whiteley, Ben Cox, Brett D'Oliveira, Jack Shantry, Saeed Ajmal, Chris Russell and Gareth Andrew.

I'd love to predict a home win to follow on from the win at Leicestershire, but it will need a special performance from someone, or better still a collective of positive performances, to steal this one from a good one-day side. 

More tomorrow.