ENGLAND fast bowler Mark Wood was upstaged on his Durham return by a strong Derbyshire batting display on the opening day of the Division Two County Championship match at Derby.

Wood bowled 14 overs but failed to take a wicket in the last round of first-class matches before England’s First Test against Pakistan in two weeks as Derbyshire closed on 301 for 4 after bad light ended play early.

Wayne Madsen passed 9,000 first-class runs for Derbyshire during his unbeaten 80, sharing a century stand with Billy Godleman who made 61 while Ben Slater scored 55 with James Weighell taking two wickets.

Durham head coach Jon Lewis said: “I think the danger for Mark and for other people watching Mark is to have the expectations a little too high. He hasn’t bowled with the red ball since the Test match in March and only landed on Tuesday afternoon so to have too many expectations would have been a little unfair.

“He’s obviously come away from the IPL with the view of giving himself the best chance of being right for the Test Match. He’s not using this game in that respect, he wants to perform for Durham but I think we have to be realistic about where he is in his development towards that Test Match.

“I don’t think the score is a reflection of the decision to put them in, more a reflection of where we’ve bowled and we’ve probably not made them hit outside of their favoured areas enough and not been full enough or straight enough at times.

“There was a little bit of swing and a little bit of grip so there was something there but we didn’t get enough balls consistently in the right areas and it was a bit slower than we thought it would be.”

Not surprisingly Wood took the new ball after Durham opted to bowl first on a cool, blustery day and was hit for two fours by Ben Slater in his first over from the City End.

His next four overs went for only 12 runs but although he did get some swing, he could not make the early breakthrough Durham hoped for which was perhaps not surprising given he only returned from the Indian Premier League this week.

Former Derbyshire seamer Nathan Rimmington also got some movement but Durham’s bowling lacked the consistency to exert pressure and by the time Wood returned for a three over second spell before lunch, both Slater and Luis Reece were established.

Reece needed lengthy treatment following a blow on the left hand from James Weighell who put Durham back in the game as Derbyshire lost three wickets in six overs after the interval.

Slater slapped a wide ball from Rimmington to point before Weighell got one to bounce on Reece who edged a back foot forcing stroke to Stuart Poynter who held on at the second attempt.

When Weighell defeated Alex Hughes with an inswinging yorker, the day was back in the balance, especially given Godleman’s lack of runs this season.

But three fours from a Matt Dixon over got him going and he reached his 50 with a rasping square cut to the boundary off Woods shortly before tea.

With Madsen playing with increasing authority, the stand was worth 114 in 32 overs when Godleman was lbw to a full length ball from Dixon but Matt Critchley joined Madsen to make sure it was Derbyshire’s day before the light faded.

Derbyshire captain Billy Godleman said: “It was nice to spend some time at the wicket and get in for the first time this season but I’m really disappointed because in the last three or four years once I get past a half-century I have a good conversion rate of making a big hundred which are the scores that define a game of four day cricket.

“So I’m disappointed that I wasn’t the one to do that today but we do have two guys at the crease that are in and I’m hoping that they can get that big score that puts us in a commanding first innings position.

“We would have taken that with both hands at the start of play, three wickets generally in the first session is an even session, four would see the bowling team shading it so to be none down at lunch really gave us a platform that enabled the middle-order to play in the positive fashion that it did in the afternoon.”