Graeme Welch is aiming for a first home win in the LV= County Championship this summer as Derbyshire face Essex at The 3aaa County Ground; starting on Wednesday at 10.30am.
Welch, who began his coaching career at Essex in 2008, says his players will be looking to bounce back from defeat to Surrey last time out in the penultimate fixture of 2015.
“We played some good cricket down at Essex, the Captain got a good hundred down there and we are looking forward to going for our first win at The 3aaa County Ground this week,” said Welch.
“Our home form in the Championship has been very disappointing because we had a bit of a fortress here last year.
“We know where we need to improve in four-day matches and this is a chance for us to learn from what we did wrong against Surrey after being very much in that game for the first two days.
“I worked at Essex for two years and had some good times there. They still have some very talented players in the likes of Ravi Bopara, James Foster, Graham Napier and Jesse Ryder.”
Welch added: “We have struggled against spin in a few games this season and we will be doing a lot of work on that over the winter. The inexperience of the team has probably also been the reason why we have fallen away towards the end of matches.
“This year we have struggled in the middle order a little bit and we have strengthened our batting ahead of next year with the signings of Hamish Rutherford and Neil Broom. I think the experience of those two along with our other senior players would have been enough to get over the line in a few games.
“We are looking to push on further next year. Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire have got to finals this season and we have done well against those teams.
“We have won a lot of games over Gloucestershire in recent years and should have beaten them again this year. Lancashire and Northants were in the final of the NatWest T20 Blast, we beat Lancashire quite comfortably and we should have beaten Northants at Chesterfield.
“It is about getting that consistency, we are not far away and we need to learn to put a run of games together to put points on the board. We have two games left this season to show what we can do and we want to finish as strong as we possibly can.”
Derbyshire are back in home action on Wednesday 9 September for the start of the LV= County Championship fixture versus Essex. Supporters can save £4 by purchasing tickets in advance.
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