Derbyshire vs Surrey - Day 3 musings

With a day to go, it would be a very brave man who suggested anything other than a draw in this game. Surrey, responding to our 452 all out, racked up 362-4 with some Australian bloke named Ponting enjoying his return to the county game, as was always likely.

Surrey’s Vikram Solanki plays a shot

The Derbyshire bowlers were hindered at various times by a virus that rendered a few of them unwell, but stuck to their task well on a wicket that hasn’t offered the expected – or hoped for – help to bowlers. I understand that the wicket that was intended for this game was soaked in the heavy rains of Wednesday’s one-day fixture, leaving the two teams playing on the latter pitch, which has turned out to be what Geoffrey Boycott would call a ‘belter’. He’d no doubt be preparing for another bat tomorrow with a ‘stick o’ rhubarb’ for a bat.

It has been diametrically opposed to the wicket for the Sussex game, when the bounce and movement was at times worrying and extravagant. While it was good to see the batsmen have a chance to get some runs under their belts and gain some confidence, don’t expect to see such a track replicated before the end of the summer.

In short, we need result pitches, the kind that were a part of the Kim Barnett era. Nice as it undoubtedly was for supporters to see living legends Chanderpaul and Ponting get centuries in this game, we need wickets where 250 can put you in control of the game and you’re guaranteed a finish in four days, even if there’s rain about.

Of course, in doing that there’s a risk of losing, or even falling foul of pitch inspectors, but if we draw the rest of our games at home this summer, we’re going to go down anyway. Better to be damned if you do than if you don’t, so I’ll wager that Tony Palladino will be working hard to be involved in what are likely to be favourable conditions from now on.

I can’t see anything more than a draw in this game as neither side can really afford to lose. Should we do so, there would be a worrying amount of ground between the two sides that I don’t see us risking. We have already had a taste of the firepower possessed by the Surrey batsmen in Wednesday’s game and I can’t see us building up a big enough lead to set them a testing target in the final innings. You can only really do that if the other team has to win and will go for anything, or if the wicket offers your bowlers the help they need as batsmen chase runs.

This wicket doesn’t, so this time tomorrow I expect us to have some draw points to add to the season haul. We will be no better off position-wise, but a few people will have gained confidence from this game, which will be no bad thing.