Derbyshire return to The 3aaa County Ground to meet their near-neighbours, Leicestershire, in the first home red ball match since the game against Durham concluded on 14 May.
Heritage Officer, David Griffin, examines the statistical background to the game by looking at the previous 106 games between the two counties staged in Derbyshire.
This will be the 213 scheduled meeting overall, and the 107th in Derbyshire.
Although the majority (61) of those games have taken place at Derby, six other grounds have hosted matches against Leicestershire; Chesterfield (31), Burton on Trent (Ind Coope 6), (Town Ground 3), Glossop and Ilkeston 2 each, with one solitary game at Buxton.
At all venues – home and away – the two counties remain closely matched, with Derbyshire claiming 60 wins, Leicestershire 63, with 88 draws and 1 abandonment.
The sides last met in Derbyshire in 2017, when a high-scoring encounter at The 3aaa County Ground saw Derbyshire record their highest-ever innings score against Leicestershire – 533 – and a match aggregate of 1411 runs, the 16th highest in any first-class match involving Derbyshire.
Derbyshire’s biggest-ever win by runs was achieved in the final match of the 2014 season when the hosts triumphed by a colossal 408 runs, in a game notable for Ben Slater’s scoring a hundred in each innings – the only player to achieve the feat for Derbyshire against Leicestershire, and the unusual dismissal – handled the ball – of Cheteshwar Pujara, only the second dismissal of its kind in Derbyshire’s history.
Runs have been the main talking point in games against Leicestershire at home; since William Chatterton scored a century at Derby in 1895, a remarkable 38 different Derbyshire players have scored 49 centuries. The highest score was Bill Storer with 216 not out at Chesterfield in 1899, a game in which he was Derbyshire’s principal wicket-keeper, but also bowled 15 overs in the match.
Kim Barnett is the other player to make a double hundred – 200 not out at Derby in 1996, while Wayne Madsen, with three, has the most hundreds against Leicestershire at home, all scored at Derby.
The highest score against Leicestershire on debut is Rob Bailey’s 118 at Derby in 2000, and two players, Arthur Morton in 1920, and Barry Wood in 1981, have carried their bat through a completed innings against Leicestershire.
Among the bowlers, Les Jackson’s 13-73 in 1962 at Derby is the standout analysis, taking 6-26 and 7-47; but other bowlers have also prevailed against Leicestershire with Mark Footitt, Alan Ward, George Pope, Tommy Mitchell, Jim Horsley, Arnold Warren and George Davidson taking ten wickets in a match. None, however, can match the 4 instances of taking ten in a game achieved by Bill Bestwick.
In 1928, Garnett Lee produced one of the great all-round performances in county cricket, scoring 81 and 107 not out, and taking 5-31 and 4-20, as Derbyshire won by 242 runs at Derby.
In the 21st century, in addition to the aforementioned Bailey, Madsen and Slater, there have been centuries by Travis Birt, Steve Stubbings, Cheteshwar Pujara, Chesney Hughes, Billy Godleman and Shiv Thakor, while six bowlers have taken five wickets in an innings.
Mark Footitt, with 7-71 and 10 in the match in 2014 leads the way having twice performed the feat, with Tom Lungley, Ian Hunter, Tim Groenewald and Jeevan Mendis also taking five-fers.
Ole Mortensen remains the sole bowler to take a Leicestershire hat-trick in Derbyshire, taking all three at Derby in 1987.
Please note that all statistics relate to games played in Derbyshire.
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