Graeme Welch says performances in the Royal London One-Day Cup have been good so far and remains upbeat ahead of the visit of Northamptonshire Steelbacks today; 2pm start.
Derbyshire began their campaign with victory in a reduced-overs fixture against Somerset at Taunton, before suffering narrow defeats to Yorkshire on Monday and Gloucestershire at Bristol on Wednesday.
Welch says he is happy with the standard of cricket produced in the opening three matches and believes victory is imperative against a Northamptonshire outfit who are boosted by the returning England all-rounder David Willey.
“We trust our methods in 50-over cricket. We have a good formula in place and the players should be able to move on from what happened on Wednesday,” said Welch.
“We have played some very good cricket in the first three matches and we are still on a high from the performances we have put in, unfortunately one or two things have gone against us and we have made a couple of big mistakes in games.
“The Northants game now becomes a must win game for us. We need to win at least three of the last five matches and we don’t want to be playing catch up.
“We could have had some breathing space, we could have beaten Yorkshire where I thought the Duckworth/Lewis total was a bit harsh. I thought we controlled 99% of yesterday’s game versus Gloucestershire and for us to lose the way we did at the end was not good enough.
“There have been too many instances this season where we have got ourselves into winning positions by playing some really good cricket, but we haven’t been ruthless enough to finish teams off.
“Hamish Rutherford and Wayne Madsen have both hit centuries, we are batting well in partnerships and our bowlers have done well as a unit so there is no reason to panic.
“We will move on from Bristol where it all fell apart at the end, and a schoolboy error in the last over cost us. We need to perform against Northants as we have done in the other three matches, and get over the line.”
Derbyshire are back in Royal London One-Day Cup action at The 3aaa County Ground at 2pm today when they face Northamptonshire Steelbacks. Kids go FREE and adult tickets are available on the gate!
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