Local rivals get useful practise

Posted by Tony Hutton

The scheduled two day friendly between Notts and Derby at Trent Bridge suffered from a wash out on Friday. For once a combination of a poor forecast and the fact that Notts Forest were at home in the afternoon (which meant no parking for cricket spectators) made it an easy decision not to travel. However yesterday's forecast was better, although the Notts website said no parking on the Forest car park today either. The good news was a very early start at 10.15 and the prospect of a 60 overs a side match.

The early start obviously caught a lot of spectators by surprise and with little traffic on the A1 I was there for a prompt start and even got a rare parking space just outside the ground. The bad news was light drizzle in the air, enough at times to drive a few of the reasonable crowd indoors for a while. However things soon improved and the conditions were far better than last week's windswept game. The floodlights were on for all the first session with murky cloud in evidence.

Greg Smith and Steve Mullaney started confidently and it came as a surprise when Smith was bowled off stump by Palladino. His partner also went at the same total 32/2 when Derby's captain Wayne Madsen held a juggling catch at first slip of the bowling of left armer Mark Footitt. This became the story of the day, all the batsman getting a few but nobody getting many. The England men Hales and Taylor went for 21 and 35, both again caught by Madsen at slip off Palladino who looked the pick of the bowlers.

Whether it was team tactics to give everyone a bat, I am not sure, but captain Read 26 and newcomer Will Gidman 37 came and went, Samit Patel made 21 before being caught by Tom Poynton behind the stumps. Good to see him back in action.
Young Sam Wood made a good looking 35 before Shiv Thakor, who has joined Derby from Leicester removed his middle stump with what looked like the ball of the day.

Rikki Wessels batted low down at number nine and seemed to have great difficulty in scoring. It was left to tail ender Luke Fletcher to hit a six and a four of Elstone's first two balls but he was then caught on the boundary in the same over. Finally Andrew Carter was caught off the very last ball of the sixtieth over, and Notts were all out for 270. By which time it was three o'clock and looking as if Derby might need the lights again to finish their innings.

Derbyshire used ten bowlers, from their twelve man squad, so only wicket keeper and captain missed out. Otherwise useful practise for all concerned as it was for the Notts batsmen. Unfortunately the former Notts man Elstone was out first ball lbw to the lively Jake Ball, so he didn't get much practise. Derbyshire continued the trend of most batsmen getting a few runs, then getting out, although Thakor got only a single before being bowled by Gurney.

Fletcher, a big powerful man, bowled a good spell and took two wickets, and Notts four man pace attack looked pretty useful. Later on Patel bowled a few overs of spin and Mullaney some gentle medium pace which enabled the tailenders to improve the position of 137-6 to 196-7 at the close. Not sure whether they bowled all the sixty overs, but it must have been pretty late if they did. By that time I was long gone, as it was getting colder and the promised sunshine never appeared until much further north.