THE cricket season is at its half way point and it could not be claimed that it has been a smooth ride so far.

Derbyshire did not make it beyond the group stages of either of the limited-overs competitions and the Championship table shows them third from the bottom of Division Two.

Of the players who would have been put forward as important to the Derbyshire cause at the beginning of the campaign, Rikki Clarke, Tom Lungley, Steve Stubbings, John Sadler and Nayan Doshi have really had nothing like the impact we had hoped.

The top-order batting has been poor, with Chris Rogers' hundred at Gloucestershire in the opening game still the only century to come from the top six in the Championship all season.

Yet has it all been so bad?

Three wins in the Friends Provident Trophy was one more than they had in 2007 and three wins in the Twenty20 Cup was three more than in that competition the previous year.

Derbyshire have won two out of eight in the Championship and, in the two they lost, away to Middlesex and Essex, they held realistic chances of victory in the fourth innings of both matches.

Charl Langeveldt and Graham Wagg's presence among the top wicket-takers in the country has made Derbyshire a formidable bowling force, Jamie Pipe has been terrific with bat and gloves and there have been good signs of growing maturity from Jon Clare and Jake Needham.

So the half-term report would have to read 'A promising start – but can do better'.

With half of the Championship season to come, starting at Northampton today, Derbyshire still cannot be ruled out of the challengers for promotion because they have the same number of wins as the leaders, Warwickshire, and an identical won, lost, drawn record to second-placed Middlesex.

All that keeps them in a lowly position is their poor return of batting points but, realistically, any county that puts together a string of two or three wins will shoot into leading contention.

To optimise their own chances, Derbyshire have to get more from their senior players.

In particular, they need Rogers to turn more 50s into 100s, they badly need Clarke to begin leading by example and they could do with Wavell Hinds making a big score or two.

It would be more than handy if Stubbings could break his habit of getting into the 20s and 30s then getting out and a considerable boon if Lungley could get fit enough to be the major danger to opposition batsmen he was in 2007.

Sadler and Doshi have been around long enough to know what they must do to contribute as they should and, if only some of those improvements come to fruition in the second half of the season, it will bode well in the Championship and in the Pro40 League, which begins for Derbyshire on Sunday at Northampton.

The situation with Clarke is the most interesting.

The second innings of the Leicestershire match this week must have felt like a personal low point, as he played an absolute aberration of a shot to get out late on the third day and then, in a low-scoring game, bowled two overs for 17 runs.

They were signs of a man who is beginning to feel he can do no right.

The grumblings of discontent from beyond the boundary are because supporters expected better from the England international all-rounder and you can bet your life that Clarke, too, expected better.

His decision to leave himself out of the side for the game at Northampton should not be seen as a sign that he has lost his nerve but as a brave and mature decision from a player who intends to bounce back and has taken a detached view of what is needed to do that.

It is a triumph for good sense over ego.

A lot has happened in the life of the 26-year-old this year. Dealing with full-time captaincy for the first time at a new county cannot be easy and the arrival of a baby daughter a couple of weeks ago has been a wonderful distraction.

As many of us will well know, becoming a father for the first time has an impact on every aspect of a man's life but Clarke has to take a step back now, refocus on his cricket and come back a stronger player.

He is capable.

The skipper, back to his best, would make a huge difference to Derbyshire's prospects between now and the end of September.