Derbyshire travel to Loughborough University on Friday 7 April for a three-day match in what will be the county’s fifth scheduled fixture against Loughborough MCCU.
University fixtures were traditionally limited to games against Oxford and Cambridge before the recent introduction of additional university teams, allowing more counties to play early-season games.
Derbyshire first encountered Loughborough MCCU in a non-first class game at Derby in May 2002, when, in a rain-affected draw, Matthew Dowman, captaining Derbyshire in the absence of Dominic Cork, made a century. The Derbyshire side also featured Steve Stubbings, Paul Aldred, Tom Lungley and Luke Sutton.
Loughborough’s side included Steven Selwood who would go on to play first class cricket briefly for Derbyshire, and future England spinner, Monty Panesar.
The following season, the two sides again met at Derby, but this time in a one-day contest of 50 overs per side. Chris Bassano made a century and Dominic Hewson 75, as Derbyshire totalled 329-8, before bowling out the visitors for just 95 to win by 234 runs. This game was not classed as a recognised List A fixture.
In 2007, Derbyshire visited Loughborough for the first time – but again the game wasn’t deemed to be first class – and weather limited both sides to just one innings. Unusually, Loughborough declared 18 players on the team sheets; Derbyshire 16.
Batting first, Derbyshire scored 408-12 with Graham Wagg top-scoring with 74, before the students made 242-14, with Ant Botha picking up 5-31.
Paul Borrington, who by this time had already played first class cricket for Derbyshire, opened the batting for Loughborough, while several other Loughborough players including Arun Harinath and Jigar Naik would go on to play first class cricket for Surrey and Leicestershire, respectively.
When, eventually, Derbyshire were scheduled to meet Loughborough MCCU in a first class fixture, sadly, the weather intervened and not a ball was bowled in the game at Derby in early April, 2010.
The only previous abandonment involving Derbyshire and a university side was in 1998 against Cambridge University, at Fenner’s.
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