Pre-Match Pack: Lancashire

Derbyshire will finalise their preparations for the 2020 season when they face Lancashire in a two-day friendly at Chester Boughton Hall, beginning tomorrow (12pm start).  

All available players are set to feature, as Dave Houghton aims to give as many time in the middle as possible, prior to the season beginning on Saturday 1 August.

Billy Godleman, Luis Reece, Wayne Madsen and Leus du Plooy will all be looking for time at the crease, as they aim to carry the momentum from a stellar 2019 campaign into the Bob Willis Trophy, while Matt Critchley will be in action for the first time since signing a new two-year contract extension.

Promising quicks Dustin Melton, Ben Aitchison, Michael Cohen and Sam Conners will be aiming to secure a spot for the Nottinghamshire fixture, with regular opening bowler, Ravi Rampaul, unavailable for the first game.

The Opposition 

Lancashire will be in a positive mood, having won Division Two last season, but the Red Rose County will be without England paceman James Anderson at Chester Boughton Hall.

However, their bowling attack will not be without proven quality, with Graham Onions and Saqib Mahmood and Matt Parkinson likely to feature, while fellow international Keaton Jennings could open the batting for the hosts.

The two sides will meet in the final Bob Willis Trophy North Group fixture, and they will have a good chance to get an early insight into each other’s squads over the course of the two days.

Pre-Match Talk

Head of Cricket, Dave Houghton, says the Derbyshire squad can’t wait to get back out in the middle and put their hard work in training into practice.

The squad will finalise their preparations for the 2020 season with a two-day friendly against Lancashire at Chester Boughton Hall, with the full squad available for selection.

Houghton says the team are raring to go, and that rotation will be key during the new campaign.

“It’s been such a long time since we’ve played, but we’ve trained really hard and the guys are desperate to play,” Houghton said.

“We’ve been ready for a while now, so to have the fixtures formalised puts the finish line on the cards for us. The guys are really excited about it, and to play Nottinghamshire first game is just fantastic.

“The way we set up as a county, we are more like a first team squad than a county squad, we only carry 16 players, who will all get the opportunity to play.

“It’s probably more important now, with it being four days back-to-back, with a couple of days in between. We have nine seam bowlers, and they will  definitely be rotated quite well.

“Otherwise, we risk the situation where we injure a couple of vital bowlers and have less players for the Twenty20 campaign.”

Match Centre

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Together, We Are All Derbyshire. Four-day cricket has returned you can follow all five of Derbyshire’s Bob Willis Trophy matches live on our match centre at derbyshireccc.com.