Arthur disappointed by Trent Bridge performance

Mickey Arthur was disappointed with Derbyshire’s performance against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, after hitting such high standards so far this season.

Having won one and drawing four of their opening five fixtures, Derbyshire fell to a ten-wicket defeat in the sixth and final red ball game before the start of the Vitality Blast.

Bowled out for around 260 in both innings, Derbyshire showed fight to take the game to a fourth day and even start the final morning with a chance of victory, but that was quickly snatched away by an unbeaten opening partnership of Ben Slater and Haseeb Hameed, who steered the hosts to victory inside an extended morning session.

Arthur said Derbyshire’s performance in Nottingham was a disappointment, especially after such an encouraging first start to the campaign.

“We are really disappointed with that performance. I don’t think we were as sharp in the game as we have been all season. We lost soft periods of the game and that was something that really disappointed me,” he said.

“The performance is not a reflection of how we have played this season. We have set the bar high this season, we have set our standards really high and this is one game where we didn’t possibly meet those expectations.

“I’ve got no doubt about the fight and effort that the guys put in, we just didn’t do it for long enough periods in the game and that was the disappointment for me. We still competed, but we are not here just to compete, we are here to win.

“It didn’t help that we lost two major players on the morning of the game and with a small squad that’s tough to counter, but that gave opportunities to Nick Potts and Alex Hughes who stepped in and did a good job.

“We have a problem with Suranga (Lakmal) unfortunately. He has an elbow problem and it looks pretty bad. We will have some proper news on that during the week but we are looking potentially at a replacement for him.”

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