Sunday 25 February 2018

Olivier and Santner catch eye over weekend

Were further justification needed as to why Derbyshire chose Duanne Olivier and Mitchell Santner for the main overseas berths, it came over the weekend.

Yesterday, playing for South Africa A against Australia, Olivier took four wickets in the second innings, to go with two in the first, as Australia ended up winners of the tour match by five wickets.

I got the impression, from afar, that the tourists attempted to nullify a perceived threat by hitting him out of the attack, his twelve overs going for 74 runs. Yet he got regular wickets, including that of Usman Khawaja for the second time in the match, as well as captain Steve Smith and would appear to be a sound, quite possibly inspired capture by the county.

Fast forward 24 hours and Mitchell Santner produced a fine all-round display to win the game against England for New Zealand when it looked to be slipping away from them.

Earlier he had taken the wickets of Jason Roy and Ben Stokes, but with overs running out, Santner, after a sedate start launched Adil Rashid for successive sixes over mid-wicket, took another from Tom Curran and finished the game with a fourth from Chris Woakes, finishing with an unbeaten 45 from 27 balls.

It was a very impressive effort and one that will further whet the appetite of Derbyshire supporters, ahead of the fast-approaching season.

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