By Neil Hallam at Derby
First day of four: Derbys (115-1) trail Notts (118) by three runs
IT WAS a case of ``which do you want first - the good news or the bad news?'' for Derbyshire's new captain Dominic Cork on a day of numbing cold amid the leafless trees of the County Ground at its bleakest.
Uprooting Nottinghamshire for 118 in under 48 overs and reaching 115 for one in reply amounted to a satisfying day's work for Derbyshire but in the process their new overseas player, Michael Slater, broke a bone in his hand before he had picked up his bat for his new employers.
Slater, at second slip, suffered the injury in going for a fierce chance off a full-blooded carve from Paul Johnson, the ball looping up for Tim Tweats to complete the catch but sending the Australian opener off for X-rays which revealed a fracture along the edge of the palm of his left hand.
``Michael has seen a specialist and the likelihood is that he will be missing for about a month,'' said Derbyshire secretary John Smedley later.
Much of Derbyshire's pre-season work was aimed at reinforcing morale damaged during last season's bitter in-fighting and there was certainly evidence of renewed purpose in the way they disposed of some rusty-looking Notts batting after Cork had lost the first toss of his captaincy.
Groundsman Barry Marsh and his staff had overcome recent flooding and freezing to produce an impressively firm and dry pitch which offered bounce and occasional movement to compound the difficulties posed by lavish swing.
Paul Pollard paid the penalty for strokelessness, Jason Gallian's first innings in Notts colours was cut short by a ball which bounced and left him and Paul Aldred filleted the middle order with three wickets in a dozen balls.
A swinging yorker accounted for Chris Tolley first ball after lunch and Cork returned to stifle tail-end resistance by dislodging Kevin Evans with a ball which swung away late at sharpish pace to suggest that he has rediscovered his most dangerous weapon.
Conditions were even harsher when Derbyshire batted, with at least three bulbs glowing on the light metre for much of the afternoon, but apart from the unwise hook which cost Adrian Rollins his wicket, Notts bowlers were given little encouragement.
Day 2: Tweats follows Cork script to perfection
By Neil Hallam at Derby
PIECE of cake this captaincy lark. Only two days into the job and cracked it already.
Dominic Cork knows better, of course, but that was how it must have seemed to him yesterday as Derbyshire, in their first game under his leadership, moved with impressive purpose towards a commanding position from which they will hope to press on to a morale-boosting victory over Nottinghamshire.
By tea, with emergency opener Tim Tweats grafting imperturbably to an unbeaten 156, Derbyshire were 322 for five to lead by 204 and follow a script which suited Cork down to the ground.
His bowlers performed with exemplary bristle and intelligence on the first day and his batsmen, Tweats in particular, produced the application to rub in Derbyshire's superiority and underline Cork's belief that fostering team-spirit and professionalism ranks as first priority after last summer's ructions at the County Ground.
``Last season was a disaster and it didn't take a genius to work out that getting morale right and encouraging everybody to pull in the same direction had to be top of the agenda,'' he reasoned.
``Reporting back a month earlier than usual helped to get us up to maximum fitness levels but even more important it helped to get the team ethic firmly planted in the dressing room.
Among the standards now being enforced by ``on-the-spot fines'' in the Derbyshire dressing room are those demanding that players are clean-shaven and smartly dressed at all times, that jeans are banned, that ghetto-blasters will no longer be tolerated in the dressing room and that club blazers will be compulsory on the first two days of championship games.
Derbyshire's players will also meet for dinner in their hotel on the night before away games ``to help focus everybody on the task in hand'' and much of the playing policy will be created by a process of debate to which all players will be expected to contribute.
As of five sessions into the new season, it was all working like a charm with Derbyshire, 115 for one overnight, grinding out a potentially decisive advantage over a Notts side whose own high hopes for the new season were compromised by the absence through injury of their first-choice new-ball pair of Paul Franks and Andy Oram and of leg-spinner Paul Strang.
For Tweats, who yesterday celebrated his 24th birthday, an admirably disciplined innings confirmed potential revealed in the final game of last season, when he made a career-best 189 against Yorkshire in a county record stand of 417 with Kim Barnett. Brisk half-centuries from Ian Blackwell and Karl Krikken provided the ideal support.
Day 3: Cork on course for win By Neil Hallam at Derby
Third day of four: Nottinghamshire (118 & 104-4) trail Derbyshire (388) by 166 runs
NOTHING has happened during the first three days to challenge the view that it is the weather rather than anything Nottinghamshire might do which offers the greatest impediment to Derbyshire's chances of launching the new captaincy of Dominic Cork with an emphatic victory.
Nothing, that is, except at glance at Wisden to discover that Notts escaped from a similarly unpromising situation at Trent Bridge last season to beat Derbyshire and stoke up the tensions which led, soon afterwards, to months of bitter division and upheaval at the County Ground.
For Notts to extend Derbyshire this time, let alone beat them, they will need to bat with a good deal more discipline and rather better technique than was evident yesterday as they lapsed to 104 for four after conceding a first innings deficit of 270.
There was less in the dank, chilly conditions to encourage Derbyshire's seamers than on day one but Notts still looked sorely tested.
Paul Pollard began the slide by dollying a return catch, off the fourth ball of the innings, Mathew Dowman flirted unwisely with a ball which swung away and Notts were in need of prolonged retrenchment when their captain, Paul Johnson, never happy in confinement, flashed impatiently at a ball angled across him.
Jason Gallian perished on the hook but drizzle turned to heavy rain to force an early tea and no further play was possible.
Derbyshire, resuming at 358 for six after a start delayed by showers, added 30 runs in eight overs which might - with hindsight and given an unpromising weather forecast - have been more usefully employed with the ball.
Phil De Freitas skied the second ball of the day to mid-off, Paul Aldred lunged all round a straight one and Derbyshire were all out when Karl Krikken, who had shared a sixth-wicket stand of 141 with Tim Tweats, was held off a top-edged pull.
For Tweats, who was 24 on Saturday, and spent much of last season uncertain of his future with the county, a grafting innings of 161 was emphatic confirmation of potential revealed by his marathon 189 in a county record partnership of 417 with Kim Barnett against Yorkshire in the last championship game of last season.
Day 4: Derbyshire find a cutting edge
By Neil Hallam at Derby
Final day of four: Derbys (388 & 43-4) bt Notts (118 & 312) by 6 wkts
A TOP-EDGED hoick which sailed over the wicketkeeper's head for four off the penultimate ball of the match yielded victory and 24 points for Derbyshire in a palpitating, Keystone Kops conclusion to a contest which Usman Afzaal's unbeaten maiden century looked like saving for Notts until they were scuppered by wretched luck.
Set to score 43 off six overs, Derbyshire careered crazily to 10 for four from 15 balls before the saner methods of Phil DeFreitas and Kim Barnett gave them their due reward for dominating the first three days of a match repeatedly disrupted by bad weather. Adrian Rollins was run out attempting a hugely improbable single to midwicket off the third ball of the innings and further evidence of jangling nerves and knee-jerk reactions came when Dominic Cork, a victorious captain in his first game in charge, lunged all round one which flattened his off stump three balls later.
Ian Blackwell perished to another stroke borrowed from a hammer-thrower's manual and Tim Tweats to a direct hit from deep point as he attempted to scamper another panicky single, but six over long-on from DeFreitas adjusted the required run-rate and clever placing and hard running meant that Derbyshire reached the final over needing 10 runs.
Three twos, a dot and that fortuitous top-edge completed the task and Notts captain Paul Johnson was gracious enough to accept that, while an injury to Chris Tolley may well have cost his side the draw, victory was ``fair do's'' for a Derbyshire side which had outplayed his own for much of the game.
Everything hinged on an incident in the 100th over of Notts' spirited second innings fightback with Tolley scampering a single to complete a battling half-century and make a sixth-wicket stand with the impressively disciplined Afzall worth 108. Something gave in Tolley's left calf as he completed the run, Derbyshire immediately took the new ball and Afzaal's unwise decision to take a single off the next delivery was punished as Alex Wharf wandered in line and Wayne Noon had his stumps flattened in the same over.
Tolley, barely able to walk, survived only three balls on his return, DeFreitas claiming a fourth wicket in his 35th over of the innings when a one-legged jab carried to second slip.
Afzaal was unbeaten on 109 - ``a massive plus for us'' according to Johnson - but it was nerve and enterprise rather than circumspection which won the day for Derbyshire.