Derbyshire cricket: Monday musings

The players and coaching staff of Derbyshire CCC pose for a team photograph at The County Ground on April 4, 2013 in Derby, England.

“They’ve done ‘em proud”.

Those were the words of my Dad today, having picked up the Derby Evening Telegraph. As you will appreciate, getting the Telegraph in Glasgow is slightly less likely than finding the latest copy of the Bavarian Bell Ringers quarterly, so he’s keeping it for me. I should be down for a couple of days of the Sussex match, when I look forward to seeing division one Derbyshire.

It is good to see the local media getting behind the club. With Derby County doing OK, but little more due to lack of investment in the Championship, the cricket club is THE senior level sports side in the county. While acknowledging that Derby is a football city, the cricket club deserves its current prominence and I hope it lasts for a long time.

On Wednesday we come up against another strong side, local rivals Nottinghamshire, and the signs are that the two sets of supporters are going to be there in some strength. It is good to hear and I just hope that ‘in some strength’ doesn’t mean that the traditional two men and a dog isn’t merely reinforced by a couple of extra canines.

I would hope that even the most partisan of visiting fans might realise the sterling work that has gone on at the County Ground to get Derbyshire to a position of parity – at least at this stage of the summer – with their more affluent neighbours. I think that the wider cricket world is split right now. There’s a few who are waiting and hoping for us to fail, while there’s others, perhaps a majority, who are pleasantly surprised and would love to see us bloody a few noses this summer.

It is David v Goliath after all, but I am still to be convinced that there’s too much between our boys and other sides. The Warwickshire game had insufficient cricket to be conclusive, but there was little between a strong Middlesex side and our boys after the first innings. We handled swing bowling badly at Lords, but bad days can and do happen for all sides and perhaps we got ours out of the way early.

On Wednesday we will face both Samit Patel and Stuart Broad, but as the season progresses the international players will become as infrequent on the county circuit as daffodils in the Kalahari. Broad, Shahzad and Adams will doubtless make up a threatening attack and will test us, but as injuries and international calls hit the top tier sides I expect to see greater parity between sides. While accepting that injuries can hit us too, the fact that we have played three of the top sides (perhaps the top three sides?) early may well be in our favour. Certainly, competing at this level should encourage the boys that they have what it takes.

I’ll look at the game more closely tomorrow, but I’m hopeful that we will give a good account of ourselves in our first home game of the season and just hope that the weather is kind to us.

In closing tonight, it was good to see the name Chanderpaul in the runs at the weekend, with Tagenarine (who apparently is known as Brandon) making a ‘delightful’ 78 for Stainsby. They still lost, but there appears little doubt that the name will be seen in cricket circles for a number of years to come.

More from me tomorrow. Lords is history, let’s go and do something special.