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THE Queen's Park ground at Chesterfield is regarded as one of the most attractive on the circuit but Worcestershire will not look back with much affection on three chastening days against Derbyshire.

An innings and 95-run defeat was Worcestershire's first in the LV County Championship Division Two this season and they can have no complaints after being outplayed.

Worcestershire had come into the game boosted by a three-day victory over Essex but they were always on the back foot after their hosts skittled them for 151 on Friday.

Conditions had helped the swing bowlers then but there were no mitigating circumstances for yesterday's feeble capitulation which saw Vikram Solanki's team routed 10 minutes before lunch for 110.

Only four batsmen got into double figures and any chances Worcestershire had of overhauling a first-innings deficit of 205 melted in the sunshine as they slumped to 68-6.

Perhaps the damage had already been done by former team-mate Jamie Pipe's magnificent century on Saturday which director of cricket Steve Rhodes described as "special".

But there was still no excuse for the lamentable batting and Rhodes admitted his players had failed to counter the swing of Charl Langeveldt and former Warwickshire bowler Graham Wagg.

"The top six struggled against the swinging ball," he said. "That's not an excuse, it's good bowling, but they are professional batsmen who are well equipped to cope with that and we have to do better, it's as simple as that.

"I would not say the batting was wasteful. There were some decent balls bowled and the pressure they put us under forced a few errors but it's not just down to poor batting.

"That's one of the best bowling performances I've seen from Derbyshire and they deserve some credit."

Worcestershire had started the day on 18-1, still 187 runs behind.

Their first defeat by an innings against Derbyshire since 1968 was sealed when Steve Magoffin missed a huge swipe at Jon Clare.

6:47pm Sunday 8th June 2008

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