Belief will be key for Derbyshire, says Mickey

Mickey Arthur says Derbyshire are daring to dream as they approach Saturday's Vitality Blast quarter-final away to Somerset. The county have to go into the game without their talismanic T20 captain Shan Masood, who is now away with Pakistan, but head of cricket Arthur believes his squad have the collective belief to cope.

Arthur has transformed Derbyshire’s approach this season and, after a poor start to the North Group campaign in which they lost four of their first six matches, they won seven of their last eight to qualify for the last eight with a game to spare. But Arthur also says it is not enough to think that the achievement is reaching the quarter-finals.

“We’re daring to dream,” he said. “It’s great to be here and of course you’ve got to be in this position to be able to go all the way and win the competition. It’s great to be in the quarter-final but that is just the start for us as a unit. We won’t be happy until we go to finals day and go one further. That’s where we sit as a squad at the minute.”

Although they had a 2-4 record after six matches, Arthur says it was the third match of the campaign, a nine-wicket win away to Yorkshire in a game reduced to eight overs a side by rain, which reinforced his belief that the squad had what it takes to qualify.

“In a funny sort of way, we had always plotted a course,” he said. “When we got on the bus and headed north to play Lancashire and Yorkshire, we knew we had to get one of the two. And I thought it was the game at Headingley (which was the turning point).

“I know that was a rain-shortened game but the way we approached that game and the quality that I saw from some of our players told me there was a lot of hope going forwards. I remember going back to the hotel