Luke Wells’ first century of the season soothed Lancashire’s current pain and helped them just about shade the opening day of their County Championship match against Derbyshire at Old Trafford.
The home side’s players began the day at the bottom of Division Two and with their director of cricket Mark Chilton’s warning that he would make the changes necessary to get their season “back on track” fresh in their minds.
But new skipper Marcus Harris’s batsmen took advantage of the invitation to have first use of a what looks a good cricket wicket to finish on 250-5 with Wells making 141 and Matty Hurst, 51.
The pair but on 121 but a run-rate of 2.6 suggests Lancashire will do well to collect three batting bonus points. Derbyshire, who began the day in second place, might therefore be happy with their efforts to contain Lancashire’s batsmen. The impressive Ben Aitchison finished the day with 3-51 and the New Zealander, Blair Tickner, took 2-59.
In the morning session, Lancashire recovered from the loss of Keaton Jennings and Josh Bohannon with just 11 runs on the board to reach 67-2 at lunch.
Jennings, who stepped down as four-day captain earlier this week, was caught at second slip by Wayne Madsen off Tickner for two and Bohannon was pouched by wicketkeeper Brooke Guest for three when he tickled a Aitchison delivery down the leg side.
Resuming in the afternoon on 40, Wells took only seven deliveries to reach a 92-ball half-century, his progress assisted by successive boundaries off Aitchison. Indeed, the temper of the day changed in the first half-hour or so of the session as the third-wicket pair rattled up 47 runs in 10 overs.
That progress was immediately halted when Harris fished at the next ball from Tickner and Madsen clung on to a high two-handed catch above his head. The dismissal of Lancashire’s new skipper for 45 ended his 103-run stand with Wells and it greatly slowed the home side’s momentum without seriously disrupting it.
Wells and Hurst had put on 51 for the fourth wicket at tea, by which time the Lancashire opener was 14 short of his century and the Derbyshire attack had done well to restrict the home side to a modest scoring rate.
Three balls after the resumption, Harry Came’s wayward throw presented Wells with the four overthrows that took him into the nineties and he reached his 27th first-class century and his ninth for Lancashire with a cover-driven four off the former Lancashire slow left-armer, Jack Morley. He had faced 212 balls and hit 13 fours.
Hurst reached his fifty off 129 deliveries but was beaten off the pitch and bowled by Aitchison two balls later. That ended his 121-run stand with Wells and four overs later the same bowler produced a vicious lifter to have the former Sussex batsman caught in the gully by Caleb Jewell.
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