Derbyshire’s penultimate home game of the season is against Glamorgan, who return to The 3aaa County Ground, Derby, almost one year to the day since the sides met here in 2017.
Heritage Officer, David Griffin, examines the statistical background to the game.
The series of 131 scheduled games between these two counties got off to a remarkable start at Cardiff Arms Park in 1921, when Derbyshire won a close encounter by two wickets.
The first day of the game saw the home side dismissed for 168, before Derbyshire succumbed to the slow left armer, Eddie Bates, ending the day 83 all out.
When the sides took to the field on the second day, with Glamorgan 85 runs ahead, nothing could have prepared them for the unique feat which was to take place in the opening session.
Bill Bestwick, one of Derbyshire’s finest ever fast bowlers – 1,452 wickets for the county at an average of 21.27 – took 10-40, before lunch, with 7 of the batsmen clean bowled, all at the ripe old age of 46. It remains the best bowling in an innings in Derbyshire’s history and is still only one of two instances of a Derbyshire bowler taking ‘all ten’. The other was Tommy Mitchell who took 10-64 against Leicestershire at Leicester in 1935.
Derbyshire reached their victory target of 193 with 2 wickets in hand, largely thanks to Bill Carter’s unbeaten half century, batting at number nine. Bestwick’s match figures of 14-111 remain the best for the county against Glamorgan.
Of the 131 scheduled games, Derbyshire have won 47, Glamorgan 30, with 53 draws and 1 abandonment – at Chesterfield in 1956, and Derbyshire’s best winning run against Glamorgan is 5 matches, which concluded with their last win at Derby, in 2014.
Derbyshire’s highest innings score was 536 in the defeat at Colwyn Bay in 2016, while at home, the best was 513-6 declared in 1997, at Chesterfield, when both opening batsmen, Michael May and Adrian Rollins scored centuries – at the time, only the 11th such instance, and still only one of 14 – while Rollins made his hundred before lunch, the only player to perform that feat for Derbyshire against Glamorgan.
Derbyshire player have scored 41 hundreds against Glamorgan, shared between 33 different players; John Morris leading the way with 3.
The highest individual score is 213 by Peter Kirsten at Derby in 1980. Kirsten also scored a double century (206) at Chesterfield in 1978, when, aged 23 years and 27 days, he became the youngest player to score a double hundred for the county.
His 213 in 1980 was a remarkable innings – resuming after tea on 105 with just 18 overs remaining (these were the days of a limit of 100 overs in the first innings of championship cricket) Kirsten scored another 108 runs in those 18 overs, before Derbyshire declared on 402-4 off the 100 overs.
The highest score on debut for Derbyshire is these games was Dominic Hewson’s 102 not out at Cardiff in 2002, while Andrew Gait scored 80 not out in the same game, also on debut.
Just one player has carried his bat through a completed innings for Derbyshire – Kim Barnett scoring 108 out of 214 at Derby in 1993, while Luke Sutton is the only Derbyshire wicket-keeper to score a hundred against Glamorgan – 120 at Derby in 2003.
Glamorgan batsmen have recorded two double centuries against Derbyshire – Mark Cosgrove scored 233 at Derby in 2006, and Aneurin Donald made 234 at Colwyn Bay in 2016, at the time, the equal fastest double century in the history of the game.
Derbyshire’s last hundred against Glamorgan came at Swansea earlier this season, when Alex Hughes scored 103, while the last time Derbyshire players scored a hundred at Derby was in the 2012 victory when both Martin Guptill and Wayne Madsen reached three figures.
Although Bestwick’s performance in 1921 dominates the bowling records, there have been 11 instances of bowlers taking 10 wickets in the match against Glamorgan, with the best – other than Bestwick’s – being Jon Clare’s 11-57 at Cardiff in 2012.
Two bowlers have performed the feat at Derby; Michael Holding recorded figures of 10-123 in 1989, and more recently, Kevin Dean took 10-109 in 2002.
The youngest player to play a championship match for Derbyshire is Hamidullah Qadri, who was 16 years and 203 days old when he made his debut at Cardiff in 2017. When he took 5 wickets in the 2nd innings, he became the youngest player since WG Grace in 1865 to take 5 wickets in an innings on his debut in the UK.
One Derbyshire player has taken a hat-trick in these matches; David Steele, at Derby in 1980, while Usman Khawaja, at Swansea earlier this summer, became the 21st player to score a century against Derbyshire, having previously scored one for Derbyshire.
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