After I foolishly messed up the difficulty with my Hampshire save, and taking an interesting suggestion into account, I have decided to take on the role of coach at Derbyshire.
Founded in 1870, the Club has won a single County Championship, in 1936. Only four trophies have followed since then, including Division Two in 2012. Having had varying low finishes since their immediate relegation in 2013, they've finished as low as 18th in 2016 and, most recently, 15th in 2018.
They seem to have a relatively small squad with a distinct lack of batsmen, so I have decided to re-sign 21-year-old Callum Brodrick, after he was released by the Club at the conclusion of last season, who signs a two-year deal. With the remaining budget, we also signed veteran spinner Monty Panesar, to play First Class cricket only on a one-year deal. With that, our budget was all gone, so this is the squad we begin the 2019 season with:
It seems that we will rely heavily on our opening pair of Godleman and Reece, as well as on Kolpak batsman du Plooy and vice-captain Madsen. Palladino and Rampaul look to both be important with the ball, as we'll potentially try and push for promotion - barring that, we are at least attempting to be competitive within the division. Limited overs cricket should be interesting, with nearly all of our front-line batsmen tending to bat rather defensively. How we could do with Aiden Markram now! Our first fixture is at home to Durham, before travelling to Gloucestershire and then into the One Day Cup.
Founded in 1870, the Club has won a single County Championship, in 1936. Only four trophies have followed since then, including Division Two in 2012. Having had varying low finishes since their immediate relegation in 2013, they've finished as low as 18th in 2016 and, most recently, 15th in 2018.
They seem to have a relatively small squad with a distinct lack of batsmen, so I have decided to re-sign 21-year-old Callum Brodrick, after he was released by the Club at the conclusion of last season, who signs a two-year deal. With the remaining budget, we also signed veteran spinner Monty Panesar, to play First Class cricket only on a one-year deal. With that, our budget was all gone, so this is the squad we begin the 2019 season with:
Batsmen | Openers | Wicketkeepers | All-Rounders | Bowlers |
Leus du Plooy | Billy Godleman (captain) | Harvey Hosein | Matt Critchley | Sam Conners |
Alex Hughes | Luis Reece | Daryn Smit | Anuj Dal | Alfie Gleadall |
Wayne Madsen | Logan van Beek (overseas) | Mattie McKiernan | ||
Callum Brodrick | Tony Palladino | |||
Hamidullah Qadri | ||||
Ravi Rampaul | ||||
Billy Stanlake (t20 overseas) | ||||
James Taylor | ||||
Mark Watt | ||||
Monty Panesar |
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