Derbyshire vs. Nottinghamshire: Day 1 Review

Shivnarine Chanderpaul hits out to the boundary in front of Chris Read of Nottinghamshire during day one of the LV County Championship division one match at The County Ground on April 24, 2013 in Derby, England. (Getty Images)

At 75-6 today, most Derbyshire fans would have snatched your hand off for a total of 175.

That we made 256, our biggest total of the embryonic summer, was largely due to the sublime Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with excellent assistance from Jonathan Clare and Tony Palladino. The latter now contributes with the bat with sufficient regularity to be close to all-rounder status, while Clare displayed some trade mark powerful strokes before going just short of 50.

Chanderpaul is a wonderful player, albeit one with a technique all of his own. You wouldn’t find it in a coaching manual, but you don’t get many players closing fast on 300 first-class matches with an average of 57. His powers of concentration are quite remarkable and he looks set to be a massive asset to Derbyshire this summer.

Mind you, as things stand we could do with a re-writing of the rules so he can bat at both ends. The late innings recovery cannot and should not mask the failings of the batting once more. In their defence we again lost a toss, and as I suggested on Radio Derby this morning, Nottinghamshire were quick to decide to bowl.

Yet we need some of the top order to start scoring runs. Perhaps we do need to look at the skipper moving into the middle order, probably to five, and finding another opener. Dan Redfern is unquestionably a fine player, but needs to realise that the flashing (an apposite word) drives are not percentage shots at this time of year. We have next to nothing coming from five and six at present, but Madsen could be revitalised away from the new ball.

The visitors lost Andre Adams and he won’t bowl again in this match. Given that Stuart Broad is unlikely to bowl 25 overs second time around, one would hope that we could make a better fist again Fletcher, Gurney and Patel than we did today.

Tomorrow will be a big one and Notts will aim to bat all of it and into Friday, before leaving us 250-300 behind. Can our attack limit them to a similar tally to the one we made?

We’ll soon find out.