IT IS still too early in the season to leap to conclusions, but Derbyshire and their long-suffering members are entitled to ponder a rare summer free of misery. They are yet to be beaten by county opposition and, for the first time since 2002, have won a championship and a limited-overs match in successive days.

Victory in a tight four-day encounter against Glamorgan at Cardiff was immediately followed by the confident and efficient defeat of Leicestershire, who probably now need to win all their remaining six games in the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy Northern Conference to remain in contention for a place in the final in August.

Derbyshire’s winter recruitment is paying rich dividends. Steffan Jones and Travis Birt have already impressed, while Chris Taylor’s half-century was his fifth score beyond 50 in eight innings since leaving Yorkshire. Batting was never easy yesterday, but Taylor played with as much composure and thought as anybody.

Rain reduced the contest to 45 overs per side and Derbyshire faced a slightly modified target of 190 on a damp, floodlit afternoon, but enough of the Derbyshire batsmen managed to chip in around Taylor.

In recent years, no county has been so adept — or inept — at squandering winning positions, so nerves may have frayed when Graeme Welch failed to score from the first three balls of the penultimate over from Darren Maddy. Six runs were still required, but the popular captain ended his teasing with one firm blow.

Leicestershire themselves needed a late surge even to score as many as 188, finding the boundary only ten times. Welch proved especially difficult to hit, even though his colleagues took the rewards.

A groin problem forced Hylton Ackerman to call upon a runner and he fell to the first ball of Birt’s medium-pace. Leicestershire were scoring at little more than three an over, but Jeremy Snape and Paul Nixon are two of the canniest batsmen late in an innings.

Derbyshire, in contrast, were never playing catch-up. Steve Stubbings began sparkily and Birt played at the same tempo before skewing a high catch to Maddy at backward point. A picture-book cover drive by Taylor immediately spoke of a man in form and John Maunders at mid-off spilt the one chance offered, on 45.