Arthur reflects on Leicestershire draw

Head of Cricket, Mickey Arthur, says there’s still work to be done to get Derbyshire’s bowling attack up to speed this season, but he saw positives in the LV= County Championship Division Two draw with Leicestershire. 

Rain delayed the start on Day One and washed out Days Two and Three entirely, but a the full allocation of overs were bowled on Day Four, as Brooke Guest (92) and Wayne Madsen (75) scored half-centuries as Derbyshire claimed a batting pointing in the closing stages.

Zak Chappell claimed four wickets, but the attack struggled for consistency throughout, which allowed Lewis Hill and Colin Ackermann to reach centuries, with Leicestershire declaring on 451-9.

Arthur admits that the squad needs more time in the middle after seeing almost all of their pre-season campaign rained off, and will utilise the coming Second XI fixtures to give bowlers more over, but there were some positives to take into the game against Durham, after a short break.

“I still feel we’re lacking a little bit with our bowling consistency, though I thought Zak Chappell was good, he came back really well, but as a bowling unit we’re just a little short – that’s the disappointing thing for me.

“We batted really well, we wanted to get 300 and two points and our intent was good, in the end we only managed one but the signs were good. But we still have a lot of work to do with our bowling. Suranga (Lakmal), (Ben) Aitchison, (Anuj) Dal, (Mark) Watt will all play in the seconds this week, we just need to get some overs into them and find some discipline.

“Before the season I thought it would be quite a good time to have a break (next week) but we’ve played so little cricket it’s not ideal. We’ll just have to make the most of it and have a lot of our players playing for the ‘twos’.”

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