Nottinghamshire thrash Derbyshire in Royal London Cup quarter-final
James Taylor channelled his disappointment at another England omission with yet another televised hundred to retain Nottinghamshire’s hopes of a double.
Taylor struck a career-best unbeaten 146 which ensured there was to be no upset in this East Midlands derby and thrust his County Championship title-chasing team into the last four of the Royal London Cup.
“Naturally I have been disappointed having also scored a hundred for the England Lions recently but there are a lot of great players around at the moment. Hopefully, I am on the fringes and you never know what’s around the corner,” the 24-year-old said.
This month Taylor has been a witness to the theory that weight of runs cannot be ignored for ever when it comes to England selection, as his county colleague Alex Hales’s five hundreds in a dozen innings testified. Marking his 100th List A career appearance in style, the Nottinghamshire captain displayed the versatility in his limited-overs batting that saw him score 41 singles in getting to 50 against Warwickshire last week, not long after his foot-to-the-floor hundred off Middlesex.
“It’s always nice to score runs and it’s even more handy on TV. The way I have scored my runs in the last few games – the hundred off 50 balls at Lord’s and then this one – made them very different knocks,” Taylor added. “I pride myself on being able to adapt to any given situation put in front of me and I have shown that to the selectors today. Fingers crossed, I will be somewhere there or thereabouts.”
Both of his one-day international caps to date have come in end-of-season trips to Ireland, two years apart, but the latter stages of this competition will offer opportunity to press for more tangible reward – a place on this winter’s one-day trips to Sri Lanka and Australia and the World Cup that follows. His ODI career average of 52 is better than just about all of his rivals.
Physique can be deceptive. Taylor’s slight stature masks the fact that he is one of the longest hitters on the domestic scene. This innings featured five sixes; the first, lofted straight of Wes Durston’s occasional off-spin, took him rather smartly to 50 while the last came in a spree of 99 runs off the final 10 overs.
That finale to the innings ensured Derbyshire – whose presence in the quarter-final stage was a triumph in itself after starting Group A with a two-point deduction – would not be celebrating on their 24th anniversary of winning the old Sunday League.
It was a 136-run stand between Taylor and Samit Patel that provided the platform – the one moment of panic self-induced when Taylor, on 26, was forced to dive into his ground at the bowler’s end having been sent back by his partner. It took several replays and some of that batsman’s bedfellow, the benefit of the doubt, to survive Wayne Madsen’s direct hit.
Patel was in inspired form himself, following his half-century with four wickets to hasten Derbyshire’s demise.
After 19 overs of the chase the visitors were 84 for two (exactly the same position Notts had been in) but with the loss of their captain Madsen, taken comfortably at cover, shortly afterwards, went any lingering hopes. The Australian Marcus North – who will be replaced as Derbyshire’s overseas player by India’s Cheteshwar Pujara next week – struck a farewell 50 but succumbed, like his colleagues, to scoreboard pressure as the asking rate reached double digits with 18 overs remaining.
The emphatic result puts the reigning limited-overs champions Nottinghamshire – whose pre-match team-talk was given by the Nottingham Forest manager Stuart Pearce in a quest for a different dressing-room voice – one more victory away from a return to Lord’s.
