HAVING had to wait four years to qualify before I could play

for Derbyshire, to make it to a final at Lord's in my first

real season was an amazing experience.

It was just a pity that the final itself was a bit of a

disappointment.

The road to the final was a bit mixed for me.

We played Cumberland in the first round and I got the man of

the match award for my 90 not out, which I was very pleased

with even though it was only against one of the Minor

Counties.

In the semi-final at Leicester, I dropped a catch off Phil

Simmons fairly early on in his innings and spent the rest of

the game thinking I had cost us a place in the final.

Simmons was eventually out for 90 and we scraped through

when Paul Nixon needed to score three off the last ball and

couldn't get it.

I was the most relieved man on the planet, let me tell

you.

Playing in the final was a massive thing for me.

I remember travelling to London the night before and meeting

Neil Fairbrother, who was an England player at the time, in a

restaurant and talking about the match. It was an unreal

experience.

But when I opened the curtains in the morning it was pouring

with rain. What an anti-climax and all of us thought the day's

play was going to be a wash-out.

We were all in the indoor school at about 4pm, waiting for

them to call it off when word came through that we had lost the

toss and we were going out to bat in 10 minutes.

There was a mad dash to get over to the dressing rooms to

get ready but we got off to a reasonably good start.

Kim Barnett and Michael Slater put on 70 for the first

wicket but, in what seemed like no time at all, we were

81-7.

It was probably the most difficult batting conditions I have

ever known.

The ball was moving around so much that we didn't have a

chance.

Ian Austin and Peter Martin tore us to pieces, basically

bowling 75-80mph off-spinners. We were 92-7 when bad light

stopped play.

I still feel that play should have been called off for the

day before we even got started because the toss, which we lost,

had such a big impact on the outcome and that shouldn't happen

in a final.

We came back the next day and reached 108 all out and, in

bright sunshine with the pitch flattening out, Lancashire made

the runs easily.

It was a shame the game did not live up to the occasion but

the memory of walking out to bat in front of a crowd that was

so loud you could not hear the calls of your batting partner at

the other end, will stay with me for a long time.