County Cricket: Hampshire v Derbyshire day 2

After day two of this game, it appears that Derbyshire are sliding to the latest defeat of a horrid season.

The top six all got starts, but none went on to the sort of score that was badly needed for us to retain parity in this game. Granted we are up against an attack that I regard as the best in the division, but we require a major effort to avoid the follow on tomorrow and I just don't get the impression that the side is up for it at present.

Marcus North apparently got a poor decision, but for the rest it was a battle that they survived for so long but were then dismissed. There were encouraging signs, against a team that includes two international bowlers and two England Lions, but the unavoidable truth is that this team of ours needs time to come together and glean the personnel and experience to compete at this level.

The Hampshire side is packed with players of great individual talent that are playing as a team, I have no doubt that we have players of talent, but they aren't playing as a unit, which is what happened when we won this title in 2012.

We played above ourselves that year, having got off to a flyer with some good fortune with the weather and inspirational performances from Martin Guptill. The latter was more important than a lot realised, his confident approach on a cricket field rubbing off on young and impressionable team mates.

This year, whether on or off the pitch, Lady Luck has deserted us. I'm not buying into the 'bring Krikk back' comments, as that's gone now. Graeme Welch is in charge, as everyone hoped he would be when Karl Krikken declined to apply for his own role and we must now be patient and allow Welch the time and breathing space to shape this team.

His start has been the stuff of nightmares, but we have to show the patience referred to by Chris Grant last week and by Rob Enderby in an excellent piece below my last article. There is no alternative. The club doesn't have the money to make wholesale changes and perhaps a few players reached a career peak in that 2012 summer that seems a long way off right now.

Subsequent performances certainly suggest that and we need a major effort in the coming weeks to recover some of the respect that we have built up over the past two summers.

And with that, for now, I bid you a good night.

Postscript - great to see Tom Poynton taking a lead in the Cricket Derbyshire India Club. If we can tap into a large and growing community and see some of them at the ground on a regular basis, it will be of huge future benefit to our club.

I wish him all the luck in the world and hope the initiative results in a bumper crowd for the visit of some legendary cricketers - and more county members in the long term.