Derbyshire were defeated by an innings and 14 runs in the LV= County Championship match with Lancashire at Southport and Birkdale Cricket Club.
Ashwell Prince hit a double-century for the hosts whilst Alviro Petersen hit his second century of the season against Derbyshire to help Lancashire hit 551.
Ben Slater hit a half-century in both innings for Derbyshire and Matthew Critchley took his maiden first-class wicket but it was not enough to stop them from tasting defeat for the second time against Lancashire this season.
This was only Derbyshire’s fourth visit to the seaside town of Southport, and their first since 1974. Billy Godleman was captain of Derbyshire for the first time, and he was pleased to win the toss and bat first on a pitch which had a reputation for becoming more spin-friendly as the match progressed. When he and Ben Slater had taken the score to 141 before Slater was out for 69 (126 balls), everything seemed to be going the way they would have hoped.
Even though Godleman (127 balls) followed Slater three overs later, Chesney Hughes and Hashim Amla (126 balls) batted serenely together to add another 83 for the third wicket. The score moved on to 257 for three at which point two wickets fell in two balls, followed by three more while 44 runs were added. Lancashire’s seam bowlers took most of the wickets to fall. Fortunately for Derbyshire Matt Critchley and Tom Taylor added thirty-four for the ninth wicket, but 335 for nine at the close was a disappointment after the promising start to the innings.
On the second morning Mark Footitt stayed with Critchley while their team gained a fourth batting point, but Critchley was caught on the third man boundary in the 107th over for a coolly-compiled 41 from 62 balls.
Lancashire lost both openers, one each to Footitt and Taylor, with only eighteen runs scored, but Petersen and Prince stayed until lunch, taken at 69 for two. This pair showed their class and experience as they stayed together for exactly sixty overs and added 258, a new record for the third wicket for their county in matches against Derbyshire. The visitors were relieved when Petersen edged Taylor to wicket-keeper Hosein, standing up to the stumps, but the next four batsmen all played freely against a tiring attack, and Prince continued to look in fine form.
Lancashire went to the close on 348 for four (Prince 156*), and they continued to score freely the next morning with several balls having to be recovered from the railway running alongside the ground. When Prince was eventually out for 230 (349 balls; 28 fours 2 sixes) he had been in for more than seven and a half hours, and his dismissal, smartly caught by Scott Elstone at mid-wicket, gave Critchley his first first-class wicket. Lancashire lost their last four wickets, three of them to the leg-spin of Critchley, for only eighteen runs, but they had a daunting first-innings lead of 181.
Derbyshire had forty-seven overs to bat before the close and, after the early loss of Godleman, Slater and Hughes exceeded expectations as they batted determinedly, first against the seam of Bailey and Jarvis and later the spin of Kerrigan and Lilley who was playing only his third first-class match. With two overs of the day remaining both these batsmen, who had so nearly seen their side to a position from which they might hope for more progress, fell to simple catches at short-leg.
With Derbyshire on 123 for three at the start of the last day, much was going to depend on the fortunes of Amla. Lancashire started with their spinners and bowled their overs at better than twenty an hour with a cluster of close-fielders gathered round the bat at each end. No batsman found the turning ball easy to cope with and, when Amla was bowled by a beauty from Kerrigan, there was little realistic hope of survival for the later Derbyshire batsmen. Lilley bowled his last 11.5 overs without conceding a run. Derbyshire will have been disappointed not to have made more of a fight of things as they lost their last seven wickets in 36.1 overs before lunch with time for another twenty-four minutes to be played.
So Derbyshire’s loss left them in seventh position in the Second Division table, although a win in the next match or two would swiftly move them to a more favourable position. They next play Gloucestershire at Derby, starting on Sunday 31st May.
Derbyshire 370 (106.3 overs) (BA Godleman 75, BT Slater 69, HM Amla 69, MJJ Critchley 41, CF Hughes 37, TAI Taylor 21; KM Jarvis 4 for 132, TE Bailey 3for 73, SC Kerrigan 2 for 45) and 166 (CF Hughes 41, BT Slater 58, CF Hughes 41; AM Lilley 5 for 23, SC Kerrigan 4 for 80)
Lancashire 551 (130.1 overs) (AG Prince 230, AN Petersen 113, AM Lilley 63, J Clark 39, AL Davies 37, SJ Croft 22; TAI Taylor 4 for 113, MJJ Critchley 3 for 50)
Derbyshire (6 points) lost to Lancashire (24) by an innings and 15 runs
