Houghton frustrated after heavy defeat

Head of Cricket, Dave Houghton, was frustrated by the batting display, as Derbyshire were beaten heavily by Warwickshire.

Despite a positive bowling performance from the likes of Mikey Cohen (5-43) and Sam Conners, Derbyshire were twice dismissed for fewer than 150, falling to a 191-run defeat at The Incora County Ground.

Houghton said that confidence is low after the latest defeat, and admits the recent performances simply have not been good enough.

“It’s knocking, in terms of confidence, seeing ourselves playing arguably the worst cricket in the country at the moment,” he said.

“We’ve not batted well, and you can’t quite put your finger on why. It’s not just one person out of form, instead we’ve had one person in form this season and that’s been Matt Critchley, who hasn’t scored runs in this game. We’ve struggled all season long.

“We’ve tried a number of different combinations and it’s not improved things in any way. The most disappointing thing for me is the amount of times we’ve had players get in and not go on to make big scores.

“What you would expect from a batting lineup is that once a player gets to 25-30, they would go on to make runs every couple of innings. Instead, our big scores have been 35-40, that shows you how much out batsmen are struggling.

“That being said, we can’t bat this poorly forever, the players are all good enough and this will turn around, possibly off the back of the T20s, once they free themselves up, and then come back into the four-day games with more confidence.”

While the showing with the bat was a big reason for Derbyshire’s defeat, there were positives to be taken from the bowling contribution.

Cohen claimed his first Derbyshire five-wicket haul, while Conners achieved his career-best match figures of 7-87.

Houghton said that while the overall result was not the one Derbyshire had hoped for, the continued improvement of the developing players is a cause for optimism long-term.

“We’ve talked a lot about the growth of this bowling attack, and that has shown us what we can look forward to in the years to come, because they have good skills.

“As they get more experienced, and we keep them together, we will have a strong and exciting bowling unit for the next few years.”