Derbyshire elite cricket performance director Graeme Welch is hoping his youthful-looking squad can continue the impressive form that they finished 2014 in.
Kevin Howells (BBC radio)
I believe you can hold over momentum from one season to the next and that will benefit Derbyshire. Welch should one day get a role with England and a step towards that will be gaining Derbyshire promotion. Looking forward to him locking horns with ex-Warwickshire colleague Ashley Giles and his new club Lancashire early season. #Silverware
David Fulton (Sky Sports News)
I agree with Kevin, they might surprise one or two. Thakor’s a good player, White is potentially quite exciting, Madsen’s reliable, and Footitt shook up a few last year and gives them a cutting edge.
For Graeme Welch, there could be no better way to start the LV= County Championship season than a home game for his Derbyshire team against Lancashire at the 3aaa County Ground.
“I’m looking forward to seeing my old boss, put it that way,” said the club’s elite cricket performance director, referring to Ashley Giles, his former Warwickshire team-mate and coaching colleague, who will be taking charge of Lancashire for the first time.
But it is not only for personal reasons that Welch will relish the opening match. He will not need to tell his Derbyshire players that Giles’ team are red-hot favourites to bounce straight back to Division One – with another of the glamorous Test-match counties, Surrey, expected to claim the other promotion place.
That is just the way Derbyshire like it.
“Opposing teams don’t generally like coming to Derby,” notes Welch, a Geordie who has come to love the place having served the county with distinction as a player before returning in his current role in the winter of 2013-14.
“It nibbles about when it’s overcast, and last year we hit on a bit of a formula which seemed to work for us. We ended up winning five of our last six championship games, and hopefully we can catch these big teams on the hop.”
For all Welch’s determination that his team remain as inhospitable as possible to their opponents on the field this summer, he is enthused by the transformation in the facilities they will find in Derby.
“It’s totally different, even from the end of last summer,” he added. “We’re now in new dressing rooms in the Gateway Centre, looking down from a height on the cricket. The old Lund Pavilion where the changing rooms used to be is now for the members. That’s one of the things we’ve been getting used to in pre-season.”
This is the latest in several phases of redevelopment of a ground that, as Welch admits, has never been the most glamorous or popular on the county circuit – but which Derbyshire’s chairman Chris Grant has been determined to improve.
Another priority – for Grant, Welch and his predecessor Karl Krikken – has been restoring a local feel to the team. Last season, after their relegation from Division One in 2013, the Derbyshire XI for their opening fixture at Essex did not include a single homegrown player, partly as the result of the tragic car accident in which Tom Poynton was injured and his father killed.
But when they ended the campaign with that fifth win out of six, at home to Leicestershire, there was a strong local contingent of three Derbyshire lads, two more from neighbouring Staffordshire and a sixth, Mark Footitt, from Nottingham.
Welch has high hopes for the continued development of all of that group, and several others. Ben Slater, a 23-year-old opener from Chesterfield, will hope to kick on from his maiden championship century last September. Wayne White, the experienced all-rounder from Derby itself who came home initially on loan last summer after spells at Leicestershire and Lancashire, has now been joined by his younger brother, Harry.
All-rounder Alex Hughes and big Ben Cotton, a strapping seamer, formed the Staffs contingent in the last game of 2014 and Welch is also excited by the potential of Tom Taylor, another fast bowler from Stoke who turned 20 in December.
Derbyshire are proud to be represented in the England Under-19s squad who fly to Australia today by Will Davis, another seamer. Throw in Greg Cork, the 20-year-old son of former England international Dominic, and Harvey Hosein, a teenage wicketkeeper who took a record-equalling seven catches on his first-class debut at Surrey, and the transformation in outlook has been remarkable.
But at the other end of the scale, Derbyshire will again be led by the admirable Wayne Madsen, and have also raised eyebrows with their overseas recruitment. Welch was already chuffed to have Martin Guptill returning – and available for that tasty season opener against Lancashire – before the New Zealander rewrote the World Cup record books in Wellington.
That stunning innings came shortly after they had announced the signings of Tillakaratne Dilshan and Nathan Rimmington, a huge statement of intent to launch an overdue challenge in the NatWest T20 Blast.
“When I came in last year the main focus was on the championship, and trying to get back up to Division One,” Welch explains.
“This year the remit is to do better in the Blast – and that won’t be difficult, as we only won one game out of 14. We’ll have different personnel this year with an overseas batter and bowler to hopefully make a big impact, and get some big crowds down to the ground.”
Derbyshire have also signed Shiv Thakor, a former England Under-19s all-rounder, from Leicestershire, and there will be plenty of national interest in whether Footitt can build on his best-ever season in 2014, which earned the speedy left-armer a place on the England Performance Programme in the autumn.
“There’s a great mood about the place; they’ve all been impressing me to be honest with the improvements they’ve made,” concluded Welch.
Lancashire, and Giles, have been warned.
Derbyshire
Captain: Wayne Madsen
Elite cricket performance director: Graeme Welch
In: Shiv Thakor (Leicestershire), Will Davis (youth), Adam Wheatcroft (youth), Harry White (youth), Wayne White (Lancashire), Martin Guptill (New Zealand), Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka), Nathan Rimmington (Australia)
Out: Mark Turner (released), Paul Borrington (released), Tim Groenewald (Somerset), Matt Higginbottom (released), Gareth Cross (released)