SOMETIMES, second chances do come along and, sometimes, they come along just when you think they must have passed by.
Scott Elstone felt like he may never have the opportunity to play first-class cricket after being released by Nottinghamshire. Gareth Cross thought he had played for the last time following a nine-year career with Lancashire.
Yet both made their Derbyshire LV County Championship debuts this week against Kent.
They had to wait around for a day and a half to get on to the field and their first action was to bat in conditions hugely in favour of the bowlers but there were no complaints.
Elstone spent three seasons on the periphery at Trent Bridge. He played 34 times for them in the one-day competitions but didn't get the call to play in the Championship and was not retained at the end of the 2012 season.
The 23-year-old from Burton kept in the loop by playing a handful of YB40 matches for Unicorns last year and played with Derbyshire seconds. He did well enough to earn a couple of first-team calls for the Falcons in the YB40 and an incremental summer contract for 2014.
Yet his name still would not have been one of the first on the list in many people's selection for the Championship opener at Chelmsford. An unbeaten 212 for the seconds, while the first team was struggling at Worcester, pushed his name up the list a place or two.
"The double hundred was very enjoyable," he said, in an under-stated kind of way. "It was tough to start with, as it usually is at Derby, but once I got in I played quite nicely.
"It was a decent Worcester attack, so to get out there and get some good runs was nice."
So, at last, Elstone made his first-class debut against Kent and although it was a difficult first day, the experience was not completely alien to him.
"It was pretty much what I expected, to be honest – tough, a fairly big step up from second team cricket and a challenge – but I enjoyed it," he added.
"With it being quite a long wait, it was a big sigh of relief to get out there at all. It was a earlier than I thought this season but I have come in at a good time with runs behind me.
"I felt I was close at Notts. I scored runs in the second team and did fairly well but didn't get the chance. This is a different bunch of lads and a different coaching staff and they have backed me, which is good and gives me confidence to go out there.
"I do feel better prepared for it now. I suppose I'm relatively experienced, if not in this form, and that has stood me in good stead. Hopefully, I can go on and prove why I am here."
Cross was resigned to a new life after professional cricket as the weeks rolled by following his release by Lancashire at the end of last season.
"There weren't many options because everybody had been signed for two or three years and it was probably the worst year it could have happened for me really," he said.
"All the other counties had two keepers on long deals and so I got to Christmas time and thought I'm not going to play.
"I did a bit of coaching and stuff and looked to the future. Then this came along."
Derbyshire came calling after Tom Poynton's car accident on the eve of the season and asked Cross if he would join them as cover for Richard Johnson.
When the second utterly unpredictable occurrence ruled out Johnson through a "performance-related anxiety" condition, Derbyshire were left without a wicketkeeper. Dan Hodgson was the emergency solution at Worcester and now Cross has signed until the end of the season.
"What happened with Tom and Jonno cannot be helped and it's given me a chance to prove what I can do," he added. "It's not great for the people involved but Derbyshire have given me the opportunity and it's up to me to get on with it.
"I've known John Sadler for a bit. I didn't really know Graeme Welch but I've played against him, that's how old I am. They got in touch and asked if I fancied playing a couple of second-team games because of what happened with Tom."
Cross got his first-team chance at Old Trafford when Warren Hegg was injured towards the end of the 2005 season but only really won the gloves in all forms on a regular basis when Luke Sutton left the club after the 2010 campaign.
There are three hundreds in his 62 first-class appearances for Lancashire and he earned a reputation as a very effective one-day hitter.
He could consider himself unfortunate to be deemed surplus to requirements late last season but Lancashire wanted to lure Jos Buttler from Somerset and Cross was the man to make way.
"They decided to get Jos Buttler, who is obviously a very good player, and that happens in sport," he said. "You have to move on.
"Lancs were looking in other directions and that's up to them. In professional sport, people come along and take your job – I've done it to a few people, so I have to get on with it.
"If I do well, I'm going to play for the rest of the season here, hopefully, so it's up to me to keep doing well and try to impress people and win a few games for Derbyshire.
"I didn't know if I wanted to play again when Derbyshire first called, to be honest, but I started training with the lads, got back into it and enjoyed their company.
"I'm going to give it five months here and see what goes on. The challenge is still there for me to go and do well and prove people wrong.
"At the end of the day, you can only play sport for so long and it's not football, where you can retire after playing. You have to do something and I was quite happy what I was doing this winter.
"I'm quite positive about it, where I know I can finish now and still do stuff after cricket, but I've got five or six years left in me if I do well, so it's up to me now."
