{"id":661338,"date":"2026-06-27T15:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/661338\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:53:25","slug":"preview-derbyshire-falcons-v-yorkshire-men-vitality-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/661338\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Derbyshire Falcons v Yorkshire Men, Vitality Blast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Chesterfield<\/p>\n

Picture by David Rogers\/Getty Images. Yorkshire visit Queen\u2019s Park, Chesterfield tomorrow for a Blast clash. The venue is photographed here during Yorkshire\u2019s Championship visit there in 2023, which the county won by three wickets.<\/p>\n

Some call it the curse of Chesterfield, but Yorkshire\u2019s current group are not looking too deeply into the historical side of things ahead of the county\u2019s latest Vitality Blast clash with Derbyshire tomorrow (2.30pm).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing about it is there\u2019s a lot of us boys who don\u2019t have any skeletons there,\u201d said Anglo-Australian fast bowler AJ Tye before leaving Hampshire last night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a new venue for a lot of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony McGrath even had a great big smile on his face when he revealed that he had aborted a planned chat with his players \u2013 or more a \u201crousing speech\u201d as he put it \u2013 when he found out that someone such as Moeen Ali has never even stepped foot in Chesterfield and a couple of his other newbies had been planning to set their sat navs for Derby.<\/p>\n

If you take the glass half empty view, Yorkshire have lost their last eight Blast games at the Queen\u2019s Park venue, last winning there in 2014.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s take the glass half full view. There\u2019s a different feel about this Yorkshire team to years gone by in the Blast, and that\u2019s even accounting for the fact they have just lost back-to-back games on the road against Leicestershire and Hampshire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They are vastly more experienced, they have significantly more quality in their squad.<\/p>\n

And, of course, last month they beat Derbyshire at Headingley in a game where late on they had no right to win it, slipping to 139-8 in pursuit of 195. They needed 56 off 27 balls and won thanks to some fireworks from Tye and Hassan Ali.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Picture by Dave Vokes\/Hampshire Cricket. No Chesterfield skeletons for AJ Tye, who struck 44 and took three wickets in defeat at Hampshire last night.<\/p>\n

Talking of scars or skeletons \u2013 use whatever phrase you want \u2013 well, Derbyshire will have a few to contend with reflecting on that chastening afternoon.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, this is a game of cricket played at a packed out, picturesque venue between two teams including plenty of impressive cricketers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

May the best team win!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got good memories of Chesterfield, apart from last season,\u201d said McGrath. \u201cSo I don\u2019t see what all the fuss is about. But we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil I was told last year what the record was, having not been at the club for a while, I didn\u2019t realise that we hadn\u2019t won there for so long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure during my days of the early T20s, we won there a bit, and in the Championship as well. I used to enjoy going to Chesterfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably should have won there last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got 200, which we thought was above par. Then, I think they got 90 in the first six overs. That blew us out of the water.<\/p>\n

\"Anthony<\/p>\n

Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. Anthony McGrath is hoping his Yorkshire side can complete the T20 season\u2019s double over Derbyshire tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t got a theory on it, but I do know that if we play how we\u2019ve played, with the players we\u2019ve got, then the grounds are irrelevant really.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t be looking at it as, \u2018We haven\u2019t won at Chesterfield\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just a matter of play what\u2019s in front of you and win, and hopefully we can change that and start changing the narrative of those stats.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is certainly one thing McGrath and his players have done already this year, change the narrative around Yorkshire and T20 cricket.<\/p>\n

Ok, it hasn\u2019t been perfect, as last night\u2019s two-wicket defeat off the penultimate ball against Hampshire \u2013 defending a 151-target \u2013 suggests.<\/p>\n

But they are top of the North Group with four wins from seven and five games remaining in the race for the quarter-finals. Win tomorrow and they are in a great position to seal a top-two spot in the table.<\/p>\n

McGrath added: \u201cAgain, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve been losing because it\u2019s Chesterfield\u2019s ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve been losing because we haven\u2019t been very good, and we\u2019ve probably not had the right players in the right places and components and different things.<\/p>\n

\"Hassan<\/p>\n

Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. AJ Tye and Hassan Ali celebrate victory over Derbyshire at Headingley last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis season, we\u2019ve been good with the powerplay bowling, good with the powerplay batting and good at the death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re three big things we\u2019ve not been very good at.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you play well across 40 others, more often than not it doesn\u2019t matter who you play or who you come up against.\u201d<\/p>\n

The North Group is jam-packed. Yorkshire and Notts\u2019 are level on 16 points from seven games, closely followed by Lancashire and Leicestershire on 12 points apiece. Then come Derbyshire and Durham on eight points. They are the only teams in the group to have played six.<\/p>\n

Derbyshire have just signed Pakistani left-arm wrist spinner Sufyan Moqim as an overseas replacement for Afghanistani Mohammad Ghazanfar, who is no longer available due to international commitments.<\/p>\n

The Falcons haven\u2019t plated a Blast game since June 7 when they were beaten by Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge by 10 runs chasing 184.<\/p>\n

Captained by wicketkeeper-opener Aneurin Donald in the Blast, they also have Australian batter Caleb Jewell as their other overseas player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Picture by David Rogers\/Getty Images. Yorkshire visit Queen\u2019s Park, Chesterfield tomorrow for a Blast clash. The venue is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-661338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}