Derbyshire: Development needs

Daniel Redfern

I’m not sure if anything from today’s meeting of the playing staff and coaches at the County Ground will make it outside of the four walls of the room, but one thing will need to be addressed in the coming months.

How can we get, and continue to get, the best out of our young players?

Over the last couple of seasons, three young cricketers, Daniel Redfern, Ross Whiteley and Tom Poynton, had been elevated to the senior side and impressed people with their displays. All appeared to be pugnacious batsmen with a full range of shots and the confidence to play them. Granted, this was in division two; but the potential of all three appeared considerable.

This year has been a struggle for all three. Redfern has had several starts, but his innings are generally categorised as being a fast start with some flashing shots before giving it away in the twenties. Poynton has been an able wicket-keeper, but a batting average of just eight saw him give way to Richard Johnson. The latter’s batting suggests that he is capable of batting as high as six if things don’t improve from the specialist batsmen, allowing for the inclusion of both David Wainwright and Jonathan Clare as all-rounders.

As for Ross Whiteley, the lad has had a horrid start with just 27 runs in seven knocks, with a highest score of just 12. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that none of these young players feature in our next championship match against Surrey, which could leave us without an Academy product in the first eleven.

Developing our own players is one hundred per cent the right thing to do, but we need to find out the formula for making them established county cricketers. Over the last few years, we have had some lads through the Academy who were playing representative cricket at age group level and looked like players of serious potential under both Karl Krikken and Howard Dytham. Yet, for some reason, no one has yet cemented a role in the senior game.

I’m thinking of lads like Jake Needham, Akhil Patel, Atif Sheikh, Paul Borrington and Matt Higginbottom. Some had more opportunities than others, but none have established themselves in the county game. All have proven they can play and dominate at a slightly lower level, but there appears to be an ‘X Factor’ that is stopping them from making that final step.

We appear to have another group of talented players coming through, but the trick to assimilate them into the team to best effect. The likes of Slater, Burgoyne, Knight, Cork, Hughes, Marsden and a good few others have rich potential, but key to future success is getting them through that final mental or technical barrier to the big time.

Leicestershire manage it. Look at Buck, Cobb, Eckersley, Freckingham, Smith and Thakor. Yes, it is division two, but one of these lads turns in a performance most matches. Three of them currently average over 50 with the bat, and I would love to know how they handle the transition on the coaching and management side. As a county, they are in a parlous state; but their record of producing good county and international cricketers is second to none.

Maybe they are blessed with an exceptionally rich crop of young talent in recent years. Maybe they just got lucky. Yet there’s always the possibility that they have something that we don’t, and we really need to learn from them.

There’s a certain unfortunate irony in the fact that the only product of our Academy who has confirmed himself as a good county cricketer in the last six or seven summers had to leave the club to do it. Wayne White was, of course, that player and we need to hope that Redfern, Whiteley and Poynton emerge from their current troughs of form to emulate him, but in Derbyshire colours.

They will all, I’m sure, be aware that such troughs are there for all. I watched Virender Sehwag in the IPL over recent weeks and he appears to have forgotten how to bat. One would never think it was the same player who had slaughtered many a bowling line-up in the last ten years or so.

If it can happen to Sehwag, Tendulkar, Ponting and others, it can happen to young lads finding their way into the game. We just need to work out how to help them all through it.

And quickly.