LEADING CRICKET COUNTY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21865, 19 August 1936, Page 15

LEADING CRICKET COUNTY

DERBYSHIRE’S BID FOB CHAMPIONSHIP r t LAST SUCCESS IN 1174 Derbyshire, runner-up to Yorkshire in the English county cricket championship last season, appears likely this year to win the championship honours for the first time since 1874. No championship matches are played alter the end of August, and up to the. end of last week Derbyshire held a comfortable lead in the percentages fable of 10.6 from Nottinghamshire and 13,25 from Yorkshire, If Derbyshire is able to hold on to this lead until the end of the season its success will be very popular throughout England, for Derbyshire has been one of the leaders :pt the brighter cricket movement. Indeed, the honour of winning the championship might have gone to Derbyshire last year had the team made ‘safety first" its policy. Occasionally the urge to go lor an outright win rather than a safe but profitable win on the first innings brought about its downfall. Well Known In Dominion Derbyshire has taken some years to mould a first-class team from the material in the county, and last season Derbyshire showed how formidable a team can be which is sound in both batting and bowling, and really keen and efficient in the field. Their only real weaknesses were unreliability in the middle of the batting order and the lack of a left-hand slow bowler, Derbyshire has added no players of note to its eleven, but whue it may still lack a bowler of this class it seems that the county has few weaknesses in its batting. - , x . Dennis Smith, the freq-hitting lefthand batsman who toured New Zealand with Holmes’s team last season, was Derbyshire’s, outstanding batsman in 1935, but his feats this year have not been quite so sensational. The improvement in the form of T. Worthington, a member of the team- which toured New ‘Zealand under A. H. H. GUligan, has more than compensated for Smith’s comparative loss of form, and he has been rewarded by his inclusion in the test team for Australia, L, F. Townsend, the side’s best allrounder, and A. E. Alderman, an excellent bat, have a connexion with New Zealand, too, for both have coached here in recent years. The improved form in both batting and bowling of the brothers Pope was another factor last year in Derbyshire’s improvement, Roth are hardhitting batsmen, with G. H. the better bat and A. V. the better bowler, loth bowl medium-fast, G, H. Pope has been absent from the team for a good number of this season’s engagements- - Derbyshire’s leading bowler is A Copson. a brilliant young fast bowler who has been chosen for the Australian tour. Although handicapped by injuries last year, be took 71 wickets and headed the county averages with 16.53, This season his tally to date is Igfi-raverage 12.38. T, R. Mitchell. who came to New Zealand with Jsrdiae’s successful test side, has been Derbyshire’s most prolific wicket-taker over a period a# several seasons, but bis slow leg breaks can be expensive —as, indeed, they have whenever Mitchell has been tried in test cricket. The Pope brothers, Townsend, and occasionally Worthington round out a good attack, which is almost ably supported by first-class work in die field. A. W. Richardson, the county captain, sets his men an excellent example in this respect. Re is also a good forcing bat.

Only four counties have so far won the championship in post-war seasons —Yorkshire on nine occasions, Lancashire on five, Middlesex twice, and Nottinghamshire once. The Championship Table The position in the county championship is now as follows:

p. Ch pta. P e. ©erhyaWre • - Keftlngttaim»lUre 9f ' * t ,-«l f S3 S3 34 30 S! m 139 93.4* 81.83 40,1? 49-00 Hampshire % , «s 190 449? Kent ?4 ISO 44,1? Surrey 34 143 4141 JSssex 31 128 . 38.99 Somersetshire 30 114 38.00 Gloucestershire • * 34 135 3790 34,79 Worcestershire * , 33 130 Leicestershire 19 98 31J3 Lancashire 34 110 30 ISO Sussex . ; 25 102 2720 Warwickshire ., 21 85 2028 ojzunorggnfiWro i ■ • * •« S &•■ 189? tm