STAND-IN captain Simon Lacey was able to enjoy leading Chesterfield to what was a fifth win in their last seven matches while regular skipper Alex Hibbert was away for his university graduation.

Lacey led by example, with a calm unbeaten innings of 74, as Chesterfield chased down a target of 249-4.

“That was a little bit against the odds, with three or four of the top order batters missing, but it gave a few others the opportunity,” said Lacey.

“Young Rob McCarroll played a particularly good knock for 40 and looked very assured. He's come up out of the second team and, hopefully, that will do him the power of good.

“I've been short of a few runs this year, to say the least. I've been batting down the order but this was a good chance to step up into Alex's spot and get a few.”

Lacey was accompanied at the end in an unbroken partnership of 105 by in-form Derbyshire Academy all-rounder Ross Whiteley.

“I'm not one who can hit it out of the ground,” said Lacey, himself a former Derbyshire all-rounder.

“I need to run it around because, if I go for the big shots, I tend to hit them straight up in the air.

“I'll let the young lads, like Ross, hit it out of the ground.

“He kept saying to me that he wasn't hitting it particularly well and I was saying, well, you're still here and you've got 40! His next 20-odd came in no time after that.”

Lacey was happy that his side were not chasing a bigger target after Ilkeston's innings started well on a sweltering afternoon.

“I think their score was about par for the course,” he said.

”The ball did turn a little but, if you were too short or too full, you tended to disappear, so there wasn't a lot of margin for error.

“They got off to a bit of a flyer, with boundaries coming quite freely. Wayne White kicked it on and they could have got towards 280 but the young lads who came in from the seconds stuck to their task in the field, when it would have been easy for heads to go down.”