REPORT | Falcons fall short at Chelmsford

Derbyshire Falcons fell to a disappointing defeat to Essex in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup fixture at the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground. 

Tom Westley, who missed the opening-day defeat at Middlesex to be at the birth of his third child, played the pivotal role in the nine-run win with 102 from 97 balls.

Seamer Mackenzie Jones took a career-best 3-43 to hold up Derbyshire Falcon’s rampant opening inspired by captain Harry Came’s start-stop innings of 97 that threatened to take the game out of Essex’s hands as they ultimately defended 258.

Put in on a green-top following a sharp pre-match shower, Essex batted largely with the handbrake on throughout as if the plan was to accelerate later on. They started by losing Luc Beckenstein to a diving catch at short midwicket by 42-year-old Wayne Madsen while Noah Thain was bowled, giving himself room and exposing his stumps to Anuj Dal.

By the time Matt Critchley joined him, Westley was beginning to find his stride. The pair gradually increased the tempo with a flurry of boundaries, Critchley pulling and driving effortlessly and Westley scoring mainly through midwicket. The partnership was worth fifty in eight overs, and 72 in a dozen, before Critchley was late on one from Dal and lost his off-stump.

Westley caressed his fifth boundary through midwicket to reach his half-century from 54 balls. However, after Critchley’s departure he was unable to strike up a decent relationship with anyone else as Essex faded badly towards the end of their innings.

Westley lost Grant Roelofsen to a leading edge to give Dal a return catch and best figures of 3-33. And the South African was followed by Simon Fernandes, who had just deposited Jack Morley over square leg for six, before driving low back to the spinner. Westley then put on a paltry 36 in six overs at the death with Zaman Akhter before holing out himself to long-on the ball after reaching three-figures courtesy of a 12th four.

The Falcons were quicker out of the blocks. Came’s fifty took just 35 balls with 12 of them sent flashing to the boundary. Came took Derbyshire past 100 inside 15 overs by launching Critchley over long-on for six.

But with the first-wicket stand on 113, Martin Andersson skyed Mackenzie Jones to mid-on. Brooke Guest and Madsen lasted six balls each as a mini-collapse followed.

Mitchell Killeen has had to wait until late July for his Essex debut since signing last summer, but with his second ball had Dal beaten for pace.

The wickets put the brakes on underlined by the fact it took Came a further 59 balls to move his score to 97 before he fell lbw, playing down the wrong line to Jamie Porter. At that point Derbyshire required exactly 100 from 104 balls.

They were stalling when Jones claimed a third wicket with Yousef Bin Naeem palpably lbw offering no shot. The pressure mounted as Charlie Bennett returned to have Ross Whiteley caught at midwicket, Nick Potts at deep square leg in the space of four legitimate deliveries, and Ben Aitchison in the deep. With 15 needed from the last over, the task proved beyond the last pair.

Falcons captain Harry Came said: “It was a very strange game. I thought we did well to keep them to 257. Martin and I got off to a bit of a flyer and to lose five wickets pretty quickly is really disappointing. To come out on the wrong end of the result after where we were with 15-20 overs left is very disappointing.

“At halfway I would have backed us to chase that down nine times out of 10, so to fall short is really disappointing. To lose wickets in quick succession, which you can’t do in a run chase like this, you can’t bat like that. I thought 275 was around a good score slash par, so I definitely thought they were a bit short.

“We’ll have to go back to the drawing board and back to basics to make sure we don’t take too many risks when we first come in. But at the same time we need to maintain the intensity, especially when trying to chase down a score. We’re going to have to have a chat as a batting group because in this comp we’ve not been anywhere near good enough. We’ll be doing our best to put it right.

“I didn’t go out there and try to do anything I wouldn’t normally do. I just tried to play strong cricket shots and lucky I got a few away, but I didn’t try to do anything out of the extraordinary. When you start losing wickets it makes it more difficult to try and put the foot down. So I tried to rein it in a bit and build a partnership, but ultimately it didn’t happen.”