Sussex v Derbyshire day 1

Derbyshire 339-5 (Madsen 171*, Reece 52, Masood 46, Dal 45*)

v Sussex

On a day when records tumbled and his good friend and team mate Shan Masood became the first man in the country to pass one thousand first-class runs, Wayne Madsen gave another example of his timeless brilliance, steering Derbyshire to an impressive 339-5 by the close.

The century took Madsen to  second place outright in the all-time county list of centuries scored, ahead of John Morris. It also, astonishingly, took him above Shan Masood in the averages, with 851 runs at 94 ahead of 1037 at 87.  Heady days indeed.

While he must have been close to being given out leg before in the morning session, thereafter he was in the most sublime of touches and the bowlers came alike to him. His unbeaten 171 is the highest score made by a Derbyshire player at Hove and he can take it further tomorrow. 

Earlier Masood, although not at his very best, edged to third man to reach a thousand runs and was just getting into his stride when he was leg before to Steven Finn. Reaching the landmark in just 12 innings saw him do so in four innings less than the previous record, set by Peter Kirsten in 1980. 

Billy Godleman again failed to get going, edging to slip, while Brooke Guest assayed a drive with too great a confidence in the prevailing conditions and played on. When Leus du Plooy left one from Tom Haines, we were 83-4 and in trouble, especially for a side that had opted to bat on winning the toss.

Luis Reece has endured a challenging summer, primarily after missing a lot of winter work with knee and shoulder surgery. He has never found his best batting groove, but here he mixed restraint with strong drives when the opportunity arose. His first fifty of the summer was deserved, but an assayed sweep off Rawlins saw a simple catch lob to the wicket keeper. The stand of 120 had overcome early jitters, however, the game now evenly balanced.

It swung Derbyshire's way with another big stand, this one unbroken and worth 136, between Madsen and Dal. While often lacking opportunity, Dal took his summer average to 76 with a tidy, professional innings, measured in approach and as always excellent in running with and for himself and his partner.

As the shadows lengthened on what always looks a lovely cricket ground, the Sussex bowlers seemed to be looking down a barrel. If we can push past 450 tomorrow - and there is batting to come to do so - then the home side will face a challenging task, Derbyshire having gone with the team that I suggested and two spinners for the final innings.

That's for the future and there's work to be done to get there, but with Middlesex being caned at Trent Bridge and Glamorgan in trouble against Worcestershire, a win here could see us move up to second in the table. Now there's an incentive! 

Finally, it was nice to see the sportsmanship of the home side in acknowledging Madsen's batting. Especially so to see Mohammad Rizwan run in to shake his hand when he reached 150. The Pakistan captain is one of my favourite cricketers and seldom plays without a smile.

But hopefully we can do something about that over the next three days..

(Statistics above courtesy of David Griffin)