Quick solution required to counter batting problems, says Clarke

A LACK of home advantage has left Derbyshire's hopes of reaching the Twenty20 Cup quarter-finals hanging by a thread.

The Phantoms flopped in front of their home fans at Derby for a second time last night, losing by eight wickets to Nottinghamshire.

It leaves them having to win all four of their remaining games to have a chance of progress from the North Group, starting with the match against Leicestershire at the County Ground tomorrow (2.30pm), and captain Rikki Clarke (pictured) knows they have to find a quick answer to the problem of batting on the slow County Ground wickets.

“This should be the place that people hate to come because we know how to play on our home wicket,” he said.

“We're just struggling a bit here in our thought processes of how we need to go about batting and what we need to do to get a decent score.

“Maybe we're striving for that 165-170 when, realistically, we should be getting 140-150.

“We just need to rethink what we need to do to get a decent foundation to bowl at because we know it's a slow wicket and we need to adapt accordingly then, hopefully, bounce back against Leicester.”

Twice champions Leicestershire are already out of the competition, having lost all six of their matches, but one more slip will see Derbyshire joining them among the also-rans.

“I said this afternoon to the lads we have five games left and I believe we can only afford to lose one – unfortunately, this was it,” added Clarke.

“Realistically, we've got four finals now and we've got to win them all.”