Derbyshire under pressure

Derbyshire skipper Dominic Cork has a difficult job

BBC Sport Online's Steve Beauchampe asks what should be done to revive Derbyshire's flagging fortunes.

If the introduction of two division cricket was fundamentally about raising standards, then those who fail to improve must either shape up or face oblivion.

Visit Derbyshire's Nottingham Road ground and you soon find people staring into the abyss.

The 2000 season proved disastrous as the team finished bottom of both Championship Division One and National League Two.

Nothing much has changed this summer.

Derbyshire currently prop up the Championship, are struggling in the National League and exited the B&H and C&G Cups at the first hurdle.

Such things go in phases and it is only eight years ago since the club won the B&H Cup at Lord's.

Overseas stars may be thing of the past

But cricket's new structure is less forgiving of failure and the gap between rich and poor, weak and strong, could become almost unbridgeable.

Thus, the years of internal warfare which have racked the county, take on a heightened significance.

"So many good players have left. Devon Malcolm, Chris Adams, Kim Barnett, Phil DeFreitas, Dean Jones," recounts Elaine Sugden, of the Derbyshire County Cricket Club Supporters Association.

"But we've only 1,700 members - almost the smallest total among the first class counties - and a ground capacity of around 4,000."

Thus, income is severely limited and, in an age when player transfers are becoming commonplace, the club has replaced their star names with cast-offs from other counties.

"I've no doubt that if a Test player or promising youngster became available, they wouldn't join Derbyshire, not least because we couldn't afford their wages," she adds.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Derbyshire's wage bill is the lowest in the Championship.

Their salvation surely lies in adopting the Raising The Standards blueprint for counties and becoming a Centre of Excellence, developing youngsters to achieve Academy status.

I'm not being alarmist, simply pragmatic - but we could lose our first-class status

Elaine Sugden

Elaine Sugden believes that the county should consider dispensing with their overseas player and invest the money in developing young cricketers.

Attempts are being made in this direction with the club hoping to use finance raised from recent land sales to develop an eight lane indoor school.

However, some feel that time is running out for the club.

"There's a new breed of marketing men in the game who don't care for tradition and I think there are some at the ECB who would happily see a streamlining to perhaps 12 first class counties," said BBC Radio Derby's cricket correspondent Ian Hall.

Selfish attitudes

"If that happened then much of the good that's come from the two divisional structure would be undone.

"We can't afford to reduce the number of counties because they're the breeding ground for Test cricket."

In an age of player transfers and heightened competitiveness in the county game there is nothing sacrosanct about 18 counties and it is perhaps no surprise to detect increasingly selfish attitudes.

As fewer teams means a bigger share of Test match receipts for those that remain, Derbyshire may find that simply chugging along is no longer good enough.