County Cricket: Something for the weekend

There were a lot of comments yesterday after what history will record as the Debacle of Headingley. It will take its place alongside the Treaty of Versailles, The Defenestration of Prague and many other major events. It may even – we can hope – be a turning point.

I’m not so sure and a day on, I think we have to accept that this will be a tough summer. We have a young squad and while I accept a comment from yesterday that Yorkshire have their young players too, they have a lot more experience than ours. You cannot, for example, compare Redfern and Hughes with Root and Ballance. It’s not just the experience, it’s the type of experience.

It’s funny though. Last summer, over the winter and pre-season people have suggested that Chesney had lost it and would never make it. One very special innings later, he’s Saint Chesney of Anguilla, the man who can do no wrong. I don’t mean to be disparaging, but he needs to build on that now and produce on a regular basis. I dearly hope he can, but one innings doesn’t make a career, even one as special as that was.

Much the same as Whiteley and Redfern haven’t become bad players in six months. Think back to that Hampshire game last September, when Ross was taking us across the finishing line like Usain Bolt with a tail wind. Or the knock that Redfern played to see us to the win against Kent at Derby by one wicket. They earned similar plaudits, albeit for the mini-me version of Chesney’s Headingley meisterwerk.

It’s not what we want, nor what we need, but there has to be an acceptance that young players will enjoy and suffer peaks and troughs more than experienced ones. When I think back to my early working life, I made more mistakes as a callow youth than I do now with thirty years behind me (either that or people don’t like telling me…) It is part of growing up, learning a trade, maturing. The alternative would be going down the John Morris route of signing Kolpaks, which was of only limited merit, even though he brought in some better quality English players. Or we could go down the 1970′s route and sign old lags, like Clive Inman, Fred Rumsey, Fred Trueman, Ron Headley or Phil Sharpe. They were all good players, but their best days were behind them and history (and my memory) suggests they enjoyed equally mixed fortunes, most of them bad.

Why didn’t we strengthen in the winter? That was one cry, but as the chairman pointed out on Twitter, we spent £200K-plus in deservedly improved contracts for the players who won a championship. There were no dissenting voices. We signed Billy Godleman and Richard Johnson, who have still to convince supporters, as well as the second ranked batsman in world cricket. All this with the lowest playing budget on the county circuit.

Could we have signed someone like Jack Brooks, or Liam Plunkett, maybe Alex Wakeley or other batsmen? No, because they cost serious money, allegedly the best part of six-figure salaries. We don’t have that, despite laudable efforts behind the scenes. What if you do sign them and they under perform like Rikki Clarke? There are still some Derbyshire fans are convinced we picked up Nicky Clarke by mistake and the financial divide between his salary and the others was counter-productive. So we must develop our own, help them to develop and bide our time, rewarding success and retaining the best of them.

We may go down this summer. We might do so without winning a championship match and on current form that isn’t unlikely. Alternatively, the players could pick themselves up and start to find their feet in a funny division. We’ve lost three from four, but Nottinghamshire have lost two from three, Somerset have yet to win and Surrey – at least until today – have performed poorly.

Tomorrow we play New Zealand and say hello to Martin Guptill. The importance of this game is accentuated by the current form of the batsmen, which has seen the following side selected:

Godleman, Hughes, Madsen, Durston, Redfern, Whiteley, Johnson, Burgoyne, Footitt, Evans and Higginbottom.

There are opportunities for people to cement or secure a place in the first eleven throughout that side and Chris Grant was absolutely correct to have a go at the players in today’s Derby Telegraph. He has ensured that they are well looked after and probably thought, like most of us, that such episodes as Thursday were consigned to history. I have no doubt that the players are hurting right now and they need to show their passion to improve things, starting tomorrow.

If they’re looking for inspiration they have only to look within. Some of you may have missed this, but the Academy are unbeaten this season and had a couple of excellent wins over Northamptonshire, which you can read about here

Some of these lads will be fixtures in our side in the next few summers. As The Hollies once said, the road may be long with many a winding turn, but stick with it guys.

It will be worth the ride.