I look forward to your comments in due course. Please remember, everyone is entitled to an opinion and I am curious to see the responses to the things that I post below.

1 Is it realistic to harbour genuine expectations of progress from the Northern group every year? Or does the financial advantage of the big counties make it a once every so often affair?

For example, Lancashire have signed two established international cricketers for their overseas roles in Mitchell and de Grandhomme. Nottinghamshire have done the same, with Afridi and Munro. Derbyshire, with no disrespect intended to those concerned, have signed two young players with reputations to make. 

The likelihood is, after his efforts so far, that Zaman Khan will be pursued by one of those bigger counties for next season, just as Shan Masood was by Yorkshire last year.

2 How could we improve the output from the Powerplay? On the face of it, our top four is pretty impressive and contains some serious players. Yet in the matches so far, our first six overs have resulted in totals of 47, 56, 47, 52, 43, 38, 57 and 46. Is the answer perhaps, as someone posted on here last week, to have a more expendable pinch hitter at the top, whose dismissal would allow the serious batters to play a natural and less risky game?

I would regard 55 from the first six overs to be a fair notional target and we have only hit it twice, so far.

3 is it realistic for Derbyshire to challenge in three different tournaments, or do we focus budget on the ones offering greater opportunity of success?

4 Equally, is it realistic for a small county to have players on the staff who will likely only play in one format? For example, Tom Wood, Mattie McKiernan and George Scrimshaw haven’t been anywhere near the four day side, but are presumably on full-time salaries. I can see George being in demand elsewhere at the end of the season, likely at a county with far greater resources and better able to afford a specialist.

I think our overseas positions are crucial, moving forward. A lot of money was presumably spent on Suranga Lakmal, to convince him to give up his international career. Yet he has been playing second team cricket during the T20, not really pushing to take the place of either of the young players in that team.

So 5 – is it more realistic to split the overseas roles for another summer, engaging players specifically for the Vitality Blast and others for the county championship and Royal London Cup?

Or are there players out there with the ability and willingness to play in all formats for six months?

These are questions running through my head and I would love to know what people think!

I would especially love to know Mickey Arthur’s thoughts on them all. I suspect that the next six months for him, may be more challenging done the last six. He has contract decisions to make for a number of current stars, while also needing to convince those elsewhere that he would like that Derbyshire really is the county of choice…