PAUL Borrington made his case to be the man to help Derbyshire get over their problems of scoring runs at the top of the batting order.

Two days after celebrating his second year exam results from Loughborough University, the 20-year-old was brought in to open the batting on his first Derbyshire appearance of the season in their Championship match at Northampton.

It was only his fifth first-class match for the county but Borrington, who made a first-class century for Loughborough UCCE at Worcester earlier this season, helped steady his side from a tricky start with an innings of 57.

Borrington admitted he had to ride his luck at times but was delighted to have made a good contribution.

“To be honest, I didn't feel that good early on,” he said. “I was struggling to middle it and just trying to watch the ball, play straight and leave as often as I could.

“It was swinging a bit but mostly seaming and you could almost see the little indentations in the pitch as it was bouncing.

“I got dropped early on and I guess you need a bit of luck, so that was handy. It can be a fine line sometimes.

“I came in at lunch and felt I was doing all right and thought I could bat all day. I was disappointed to get out in the end but you can always say that

“ It would have been nice to keep batting and batting and watch them more tired.

“It was good to get a bit of a partnership going with Wavell and nice to have someone with that experience at the other end to talk you through it.

“He just told me to bat through, grind them down and try to get to the stage where we could play where we did. The lads played brilliantly in the last session and now we are in a pretty decent position.”

Borrington has had to be content with waiting until the end of the season for his previous Championship chances but knows that more performances like yesterday's could bring him an extended run of games.

“I'll just try to score runs and see what happens,” he added.

“If I'm playing, great – if I'm not, I'm not but I'll do everything I can to make sure I am playing in the next game.”