Billy Godleman is pleased the Derbyshire squad are set to train in conditions they will face in April, with the season now just one month away.
The opening batsman explains why the Club made the decision to stay at The 3aaa County Ground to replicate conditions they are more likely to face in April and he is confident his team will be ready for the season opener on Friday 20 April.
He said: “When we get the opportunity to go outside, that is the best way of replicating the conditions we are going to face in the opening game.
“Netting in the middle of March, those conditions will probably be exactly the same as the ones we will start the season in. Sometimes when you go abroad the conditions are so different to what you will encounter at the start of our season.
“The winter was broken down into three phases. Pre-Christmas is predominantly strength and conditioning work with players reviewing their individual seasons, reviewing our team performances and putting into place how we want to use the time from January onwards to keep improving and developing.
“The second phase is quite a lot of skill work with respective coaches and each other and now we are transitioning into the start of the third phase which is more competitive nets.
“It’s about making sure we are having the right balance of skill work, net and competitive practice which has really been the outline of the winter.”
Meanwhile, Matt Critchley has flown from Antigua to Barbados following a late call into the North squad to replace Paul Coughlin, who suffered a dislocated shoulder in the last one-day fixture against West Indies A.
The 21-year-old leg-spinning all-rounder, who had already become Derbyshire’s first Lions representative, is also breaking new ground as the county’s first selection in the North-South Series, which was introduced in Dubai and Abu Dhabi last year to give more players the chance to stake their claims ahead of the 2019 World Cup.
Critchley will hope to feature in a warm-up game on Thursday against Northamptonshire, before the first match of the series at the Kensington Oval on Sunday.
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