Dave Houghton believes future is bright at Derbyshire thanks to young guns

Houghton is confident success is headed to the Incora County Ground in the coming years thanks to the club’s thriving pathway programme.

Derbyshire suffered a T20 finals day defeat and missed out on County Championship promotion last summer.

But Houghton believes the club’s young guns could be key to turning that around.

“Our pathway scheme is running fantastically well,” he said.”When I arrived the pathway was a mess and we were given a slap by the ECB to get it right and we have done that.

“Daryn Smit is doing a fantastic job in charge and, even in these difficult times, we have still managed to get good sessions for our academy lads.

“We will have games for them this summer and it is all running really well.

“There are one or two youngsters in our academy at the moment that I would have no qualms about signing up if the money is there next season.

“We are starting to produce our own players. It has been hampered before by disruption to the club every three-four years by them wanting to change the committee, the coach, change the chief exec or something else and that is what stops you producing the youngsters.

“We have got a nice crop coming through, everything is stable at the club and the board are doing a fantastic job.

“If left to grow like this, then I think over the next five to ten years you will see a much different Derbyshire.”

And Houghton is confident the club currently have the right blend of youth and experience to continue the recent on-field progress.

“To get the success you want as a club you need the right characters in place and I think we have got a good squad,” he added.

“It will be interesting to see how all formats of cricket go this season. Nobody has overseas pros, they are important guys for us because they bring quite a lot to the table.

“I don’t expect us to be going backwards. I expect us to be going forwards. We have added some really youngsters to the squad as well so it gives us a few more options, particularly in T20 cricket.

“I think we have got everything going the right way and the future is bright.”