Graeme Welch says the Royal London One-Day Cup fixture away at Durham today (10.30am) is the side’s biggest game of the season so far as the Falcons chase a spot in the last eight.
Derbyshire have won three and lost three of their opening six matches, meaning that they must beat the reigning champions at the Emirates Durham ICG to stay in the competition.
Victory at Durham will move Welch’s men back into the top four of Group A and in contention for a quarter-final place ahead of the final group fixture at home to Worcestershire tomorrow; 10.30am start.
Elite Performance Director, Welch said: “The next two games are really big games for us. If we beat Durham then we have a great chance of qualifying for the quarter finals. It is probably the biggest game of the season for us.
“Victory will knock Durham out, but it all depends on Northants in the last two fixtures. It would be great to win both games, but we may end up only having to win one of the two games.
“Durham have two very good batsmen at the top of the order in Phil Mustard and Mark Stoneman and then they have got Paul Collingwood who is a rock in the middle order for them.
“They know their own pitch well up there, we played well against them at Derby in the NatWest T20 Blast and that is another case of a game where we should have won.
Welch added: “I think we should have won five games, the game at Gloucestershire was obviously bitterly disappointing for us. We could have also beaten Yorkshire at home where we had a tight finish at the end. We even got ourselves into a good position in the Surrey game so we should be sitting here quite comfortable and talking about another couple of wins.
“But if we continue to play how we have played in this competition then we should be fine. We will be going through the same preparation and everything will be in place, we just need to perform on the day.
“We want to progress and we would love to go one step further than last year and test ourselves in a semi-final. We have a great method in 50-over cricket and we are certainly aren’t scared of anybody.”
Derbyshire Falcons are back in home action on Tuesday 18 August when they take on Worcestershire in the Royal London One-Day Cup. Buy in advance and save £4!
[ticketbuttons]
