Preview by North Derbyshire Radio’s Cricket Correspondent James Ede
Derbyshire’s third game of the Metro Bank One Day Cup takes place this Sunday as they host local rivals Nottinghamshire at the Central Co-op County Ground.
The Falcons are yet to win a game in the competition this year after their opening-match defeat to Gloucestershire and Thursday’s rained off game at Glamorgan.
However, with their first home match in the tournament, they will hope to secure their first win and move up from sixth place in Group A.
Last match
After a 59-run defeat in Cheltenham two days before, Mickey Arthur and his team would not have been too disappointed to pick up two points against last year’s cup winners Glamorgan, albeit due to the rain.
The loss to Gloucestershire did feature promising displays from new signings Amrit Basra and Rory Haydon, as well as captain Brooke Guest, but a target of 342 was always going to be tough to chase.
Despite a tidy opening spell from Haydon, who returned figures of 1/34 from nine overs, the hosts got off to a quick start with James Bracey hitting four sixes in his 83 off 66 balls.
Number three Ollie Price played a controlled innings to make 103 off 115 and half-centuries from Ben Charlesworth and captain Jack Taylor helped to push the score up to 341/8.
Nick Potts led the way with three wickets for the Falcons but proved expensive in his eight overs, going for 72 runs.
Fellow fast bowler Ben Aitchison took two wickets, whilst Martin Andersson and Matt Montgomery, on debut, took one each.
Faced with a big chase, the visitors got off to a poor start with openers Harry Came and Caleb Jewell both falling within the first 11 overs.
Guest hit 86 at just less than a run a ball and was supported by 40s from Montgomery and Basra before a collapse from 228/4 to 282 all out, as Gloucestershire’s Zaman Akhter took four wickets.
The Falcons came away with a net run rate of -1.180, which sees them slightly ahead of Glamorgan’s -1.440, who sit behind them in seventh after Thursday’s abandonment.
Derbyshire team news
This weekend’s fixture is set to see home debuts for the duo of Basra and Haydon, although loan signing Montgomery will be unable to face parent club Nottinghamshire.
Luis Reece, Harry Moore, David Lloyd, Alex Thomson and Mitch Wagstaff are all set to miss out with injury, although Zak Chappell and Jack Morley have returned to the squad after missing recent games due to personal reasons and injury.
Anuj Dal was left out of the squad for the Glamorgan game as he continues his recovery from injury and is again not part of Sunday’s 13-man team.
Chappell is likely to replace Nick Potts, who was expensive against Gloucestershire, and Morley could replace young spinner Joe Hawkins.
Opposition news
Nottinghamshire currently sit third in Group A, having won one game and tied one from their first two games.
They beat Essex by 51 runs on DLS method on Tuesday, mainly thanks to Tom Moores’ sensational 148 off 93 balls, which rescued them from 74/5 to post 283/9, before Thursday’s match, which was also decided by DLS method, was tied with Worcestershire Rapids.
The Rapids scored 312/7 in 47.1 overs, with centuries for Jake Libby and Kashif Ali, as fast bowler James Hayes took 4/63 for Notts.
In their chase of 326 in 47 overs, adjusted by DLS, the Outlaws were 145/7 as just two designated batters made it past 17.
However, fifties from lower-order batters Joe Pocklington (54 off 41) and Rob Lord (83 off 59) dragged them back into the game before number 10 Brett Hutton hit a single off the last ball of the innings to tie the game.
Despite having nine players away in The Hundred, including England’s Ben Duckett and Josh Tongue, the Outlaws’ squad still contains former England batter Haseeb Hameed, who is captaining the side, and Australian all-rounder Daniel Sams, who has played 10 T20Is and three seasons in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Moores is currently the fourth-highest run-scorer in the competition and all-rounder Lyndon James is in the top 10 wicket-takers.
Previous encounter
It has been four years since Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire last faced off in a 50-over match, which took place on 4 August 2021.
The match was shortened to 27 overs each and, after the Falcons hit 258/6 in their innings, they bowled their opponents out for 217 to win by 41 runs.
A blistering 109 off 59 balls from Tom Wood was assisted by a quickfire fifty from Harry Came as Derbyshire scored at almost 10 runs an over in their short innings.
All-rounder Fynn Hudson-Prentice then took three wickets as no Outlaws player made a half-century and they fell short of their target.
The game also saw fast bowler George Scrimshaw make his List A debut for the county, returning figures of 2/41 from five overs.
That match was Derbyshire’s only win in the 2021 competition, as one no result and six defeats meant they finished bottom of Group B, whilst Notts finished sixth.
Derbyshire (258/6) v Nottinghamshire (217), 4 August 2021:
Derbyshire team: Mitch Wagstaff, Harry Came, Tom Wood, Brooke Guest (WK), Alex Hughes (C), Fynn Hudson-Prentice, Mattie McKiernan, Alex Thomson, Nils Priestley, Ravi Rampaul, George Scrimshaw
Familiar faces
The Falcons could play against two former Derbyshire players on Sunday – Ben Slater and Conor McKerr.
Slater, who was born in Chesterfield and supports the Spireites, spent six seasons with the county between 2013 and 2018, scoring 4,461 runs and seven centuries across all formats.
The 33-year-old moved to Trent Bridge in 2019 and has remained there since, apart from a loan spell at Leicestershire in 2020.
So far in the One Day Cup, he has scored 56 runs in two games, with a high score of 41 in the tie against Worcestershire.
McKerr is also in the Outlaws’ squad, although he is yet to be included in their matchday squads for either game so far and has only played five T20s this year.
The 6ft 6 in fast bowler, who went on loan three times to Derbyshire in 2017, 2021 and 2023 from Surrey, moved up to Notts this season but has struggled, taking just three wickets at an average of 62 in the Blast.
Match details
Derbyshire Falcons v Nottinghamshire Outlaws
Metro Bank One Day Cup – Group A
11:00 am start time
Central Co-op County Ground, Derby
