Napier has come of age

Graham Napier really put Derbyshire to the sword in Sunday's National League clash.

I had the pleasure of batting the other end to him as he smashed the ball all around the park while scoring 78 in just 83 balls.

It was great stuff and I had the enjoyable task of just geeing him along and encouraging him to get on with the job.

He strikes the ball beautifully and has all the shots, but he has also worked hard on getting into good positions to defend his wicket.

Napes has been in the twelve for most of the season and Keith Fletcher should take all the credit for the lad's exploits at Derby.

It was Fletch's idea to put him in the side and his idea to bat him as high as number three in the order. Not a bad achievement for a player who's been battling back to fitness.

Dream victory at Worcester

"Conquer your fears and live your dreams!"

I used that little saying to rally the lads before we went out and whipped Worcestershire by a massive ten wickets on their own New Road wicket.

The match was a potential banana skin because Worcester are in third place, tucked in behind us and Northants in the Second Division Championship.

And on breathing a huge sigh of relief at the absence of their ace bowler Glenn McGrath - away on international duty - I said to the lads: "Let's not slip up on it - make sure we step over it!"

Step over it? We trod Worcester into the ground into the process. But I paid a big price.

I did some serious damage when I turned an ankle bowling in tandem with Ashley Cowan on the penultimate afternoon.

The pain was so excruciating that Worcester's physio wanted to send me to hospital for an X-ray.

I was having none of that, especially as the game had reached a critical stage. So I bit the bullet, patched myself up and got stuck in with Ashley again.

We bowled unchanged from tea until the end of Worcester's second innings, both finishing up with five wickets apiece.

And while Ashley celebrated his nine wickets in the match with a welcome beer I washed down the sweet taste of success with my now customary mineral water.

I was so proud of Ashley - and myself for that matter. We were determined to keep on going and we would have bowled until we dropped.

Prich (Paul Prichard) and Larry (Paul Grayson) then polished off our victory target the next morning in great style.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.