Statistical Preview: Yorkshire

Derbyshire’s sixth championship game of the summer sees them face Yorkshire at Chesterfield for the first time in this competition since 2013 and a large, expectant crowd will surely be present for this eagerly awaited match.

Heritage Officer David Griffin previews the fixture.

These neighbouring counties have met 211 times in first class matches, although three of the scheduled games were abandoned without a ball bowled with a further 84 drawn.

Derbyshire’s record against Yorkshire is not a glorious one – just 20 wins for the home side set against 104 for the visitors – although some supporters will recall a brief golden period from 1989 to 1991 when Derbyshire won three consecutive games at Queen’s Park, though nobody will recall the three successive wins back in the late 1870s including the only time Derbyshire have ever achieved home and away wins in the same season against their neighbours in 1879.

Chesterfield is, of course, the natural venue for this fixture having hosted 70 of the 105 home games with Derby staging most of the remainder, while two games were played at Glossop and just one at Ilkeston.

Derbyshire’s highest innings total against Yorkshire is 523 all out in the drawn fixture at Derby in 2005 when Ant Botha scored an undefeated 156 while Yorkshire’s top score came at Leeds in 2013 when they amassed 677 for seven declared with Joe Root making a superb 236 and Jonny Bairstow 186. This came after Chesney Hughes had scored 270 not out, the second highest individual score in Derbyshire’s history, but even that was not enough to stave off an innings defeat.

Yorkshire also won the return fixture at Chesterfield by an innings although the most recent encounter, at Headingley in the 2020 Bob Willis Trophy ended in a rain-affected draw.

Derbyshire players have registered 57 hundreds in these games, four of which were double centuries, Kim Barnett, and Bill Storer each scoring four.

Barnett made 210 not out at Derby in 1987, taking part in a second wicket partnership with Tim Tweats of 417 which remains the highest for any wicket, and in addition to the doubles made by Barnett and Hughes, John Eggar scored 219 at Bradford in 1949 and Dean Jones 214 not out at Abbeydale Park, Sheffield in 1996.

Amongst the current Derbyshire squad, just Wayne Madsen has a hundred against Yorkshire to his name, scoring a magnificent 141 at Chesterfield in 2013, rated by many observers as the finest of his  centuries for the county.

Bill Storer, one of four Derbyshire wicketkeepers to play Test cricket for England, was the first to score a hundred in each innings of a game for the county, scoring 100 and 100 not out against Yorkshire at Derby in 1896, while Harry Bagshaw became the sole Derbyshire player to make a hundred before lunch against Yorkshire in the same match.

Derbyshire have managed six century partnerships for the tenth wicket in first class cricket and the two largest were both against Yorkshire: by Alan Hill and Martin Jean-Jacques (132 at Sheffield in 1986) and Geoff Miller and Simon Base (107 at Chesterfield in 1990).

Derbyshire’s bowlers have taken five Yorkshire wickets in an innings 110 times. The legendary 19^th century fast bowler Bill Mycroft performed the feat ten times with a best of seven for 33 at Bramall Lane, Sheffield in 1879. He also recorded the best match figures – 13 for 65 – in the same game.

More recently, the last Derbyshire bowler to take five wickets in an innings was Wes Durston who claimed five for 34 at Headingley in a drawn match in 2012.

Another off spinner, Geoff Miller, was the last bowler to take five in an innings at Chesterfield, helping Derbyshire to victory with six for 45 in 1990. This was Miller’s final five wicket haul for the county, and it was fitting that he did it during a win on the ground in the town of his birth.

The last bowler to take ten in a match was Philip DeFreitas who took 10 for 172 at Derby in 1997.

Only one Derbyshire bowler has taken a hat trick against Yorkshire, John Platts performing the feat – the first bowler to take three in three for the county – at Derby in 1880