Even after all these years, it is hard to believe that Madsen has batted better than he is at present. His timing and placement are a wonder to watch and he seems to be completely in control of the situation, from the minute he takes guard.
I still couldn't name you one bat in the country who I would prefer to watch more than the maestro, who went past 20,000 runs in all cricket for Derbyshire in the course of his innings. He is only the third player, after Kim Barnett and Denis Smith, to do so and has quite rightly entered the county's cricket pantheon.
At the other end he was well supported by Tom Wood, belatedly chosen for a format that seemed as if created for him. He had a bit of luck tonight, but all players need that at times and he lent admirable support to his senior partner as they gradually rebuilt the innings from an awful start.
Both Luis Reece and Haider Ali were out to Callum Parkinson, neither of them to strokes that did them any favours. Ali is in an awful run of form and averages only five in a format that was supposed to be his speciality. There must now be strong pressure to omit him from the side to play Birmingham tomorrow, with Harry Came awaiting his opportunity. He may be saved by Anuj Dal's poor run this time, but the county expects and needs more from an overseas player.
As has become the norm this season, the departure of one from a stand saw a mini collapse, as the home side's spinners got to work on a helpful track. But the reliable Guest lent good support to Madsen, who reached a second Vitality Blast century in successive seasons. It was a magnificent effort and it is hard to imagine how Derbyshire can eventually replace him.
A 190 target seemed a challenge, but the home side battled well. Patel batted beautifully, as did Ackermann, while the late injection of tempo from the precocious Ahmed, who had earlier bowled with skill, looked like it would get Leicestershire across the line.
But Khan and Scrimshaw held their nerve in a tense finish, after Watt had finished his spell almost on one leg, making him seem doubtful for tomorrow.
The irony of our dropping a spinner on a track that seemed made for them, then cobbling together two overs from the part time du Plooy and Wood was not lost on me, further evidence of muddled thinking. Their two overs went for 25, while Reece bowled his two for just 14. Chappell was unlucky but mixed it up cleverly and took a key wicket of Mulder.
Still, a win is a win and I have waited long enough to report on one this summer. How many more there will be is a moot point, because at some point the incomparable Madsen has to fail.
Hopefully someone is ready to step up if he does.
But tonight, at least, we got some points on the board.
And we watched the greatest Derbyshire player of the generation at his imperious best.
A nice thought to close with.
My likely team for tomorrow:
Wood, Reece, Madsen, du Plooy, Ali, Guest, Came, McKiernan, Chappell, Scrimshaw, Khan
Or...do you omit Ali and bring in Lakmal?
Surely Ali is in the last chance saloon. Let him bat at 4 or 5 because he has failed miserably as an opener. If he fails tomorrow Lakmal should take his place. Also Guest has to bat before Anuj Dal who sadly has shown no T20 form this season.
ReplyDeleteThe constant consideration of possible changes to give this side more chance of success rumbles on. I believe it is time to drop Ali down to 5 but not omit him from the side . Confidence is the main issue with him and it will return. Congratulations again to Wayne Madsen- a brilliant performance and a genuinely fine cricketer. Also, well done to Tom Wood ,who did well when under considerable pressure to do so. He would be in my T20 side every time. My major concerns are with Du Plooy and Arthur. The former shows no credentials for the position of Captain at all and his performances have been woeful. He seriously needs to get his head sorted out. Arthur's planning for competitions this year has been imo unacceptably poor and nothing would now surprise me regarding his future with the Club. But just for tonight it is great to have a small amount of success to enjoy, admittedly mainly due to one individual and to dare to hope, however minimally, that more will follow.
ReplyDeleteWonderful innings by Madsen again, played the situation perfectly . I thought we were poor in the field and at some stages it was unclear who was Skipper . The decision by Du Plooy to bowl himself and Wood was odd and then he fielded at long off as the game got very tight leaving Wayne and Guest to navigate . Will not win many games unless we get a TEAM performance in my view .
ReplyDeleteAt one point du Plooy was at fine leg, which seemed an odd place to skipper from. Madsen seemed to be the brains at the death and Guest is always involved.
DeleteI agree with others, he should bat higher as he has the shots in his locker
Du Plooy has to field on the boundary as he is one of our best out fielders and sadly we are carrying too many poor fielders who we have to try and hide in the field.
DeletePaul
We've said it before and no doubt we'll say it again....who is going to score runs for us if Wayne is dismissed early? On last night's evidence we can but hope that Wood and Guest will step up..I'd like to see Guest moving up the order after the continual failures of the captain and Ali and once again our bowling was hardly impressive. But for now let us salute Wayne Madsen - our hero and the mainstay of our batting for so many seasons. We would be in a complete pickle without him.
ReplyDeleteI see that you have omitted Watt from this side. Form or injury after limping through last night’s overs? Craig.
ReplyDeleteInjury, Craig. He bowled well last night, but was obviously struggling and the physios will need to work hard to sort him for this one. Looked like his left knee...
DeleteWayne Madsen is a fabulous better and a great guy to boot. This season's form only deepen my concerns about what happens when Father time catches up with even him. We have clear issues around performance, selection and confidence in the short term but, looking forward, it's worrying just how much Wayne is carrying the batting right now, and has done too often in years past.
ReplyDeleteGood luck tonight folks.
Andy
Can we now say we are a one man team, I think it's clearly obvious that without the brilliant Madsen in this team, we'd be in a right mess. He is carrying this team because nobody else is offering anything with the bat, Wood might do given the opportunity, but Wayne is our saviour, a class act.
ReplyDeleteA win is a win no matter how tight it is, but I think we'll come crashing back down to earth against the Bears today
Well, there are no superlatives left to describe Wayne anymore. We have all seen him play some great innings, but last night, Wow....just wow!
ReplyDeleteWe won that game because of him and Leicestershire's shoddy fielding. I too was puzzled by our omission of a spinner on what is traditionally a venue that helps the slower bowlers, and it did.
Although we got our first points, I have to say the game itself only confirmed our limitations in this competition. Some have advocated playing the extra batsmen and getting overs out of Wood, Madsen and Du Plooy. It's clear Wayne isn't up to bowling and cobbling overs from Wood and Du Plooy just isn't going to work. Also, we can't guarantee a full complement from Luis which all combined gives us a problem.
Credit to Tom Wood who stuck at it last night. However, his innings only confirmed my reservations. The sad reality is our options are so limited given the lack of depth to our squad, especially when you see some of the other teams.
Plenty of work for MA to do at the end of the season. Let's see how we measure up against Warwickshire ( none of this Bears nonsense) this evening.
Think tonight's game is crucial as T20 is such a confidence game and you tend to get teams going on runs, whether positive or negative. Watching Shan Masood last night being interviewed he mentioned how we lost our first few games last year and then went on that amazing run.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of criticism for Du Plooy but he's averaged 70+ in the championship so not in horrendous form -just had three failures in the T20 which is possible in this game. I suspect the main issue is the overseas player not firing. If we had a Masood in last years form then it covers the issues with others (plus the others get confidence from playing with him) - I didn't hear much criticism when Ali was signed and on paper he is the sort of person we should be taking a chance on. In reality we could move a lot of the other people in and out of the team and barring a bit of luck it would end in the same result. Realistically looking at the squads in our group we shouldn't be in the Top 4 which goes to show how well we played last year. Anyway here's hoping for a win tonight and a little bit of momentum!
A voice of reason, Gary! If you look at it, our squad on paper is not as strong as many others in the northern group. For us to get through that group, we need that squad to play to its potential most of the time. That hasn't happened, for whatever reason.
DeleteThere's an old saying in cricket that an out of form player is only one innings away from being in form.
Leus looked like he got a bad decision last night. Perhaps this is the night that he and Haider show their best.
It will be worth watching if they do!
So Jasper u think Wood's innings .'confirmed you reservations'. Well I have reservations about every player in this squad apart fromMadsen,Reece and maybe 2 others. Wood easily deserves a good run of games because he is very capable of affecting a game..more so than many others.Accepting that we are woefully short in most areas , he has to play. 'Plenty of work to do for Arthur at the end of the season'...he'll be lucky if he gets there. If he were a football manager he would be out now...deservedly so imo
ReplyDeleteYes Raymond, in my opinion (that's all it is) Tom Wood is a very good club player but a little short of what's required at first class level. He certainly deserves a chance and I sincerely hope he proves me wrong.
DeleteI'm not sure what we would gain in getting rid of MA at this stage or at the end of the season. Thankfully, we are not a football team, and he's not a football manager, so I don't suppose we will be following the managerial merry go round that goes on in that particular sport. Though I suppose there's always Sam Allardyce..
Opinions are all we all have. Each of us entitled to them! But there will be no sacking, nor should there be.
DeleteMistakes have been made ( in my opinion!) but he will be properly judged when he has had the winter to bring in his players. Like Paul Warne at DCFC..
Once again, last night the brilliant Madsen showed how to bat in a T20 game. But, as others have said, where would we be without him. Wood and Guest provided good support. The former knows he has to impressive when given the chance, while Guest continues to develop into a sound and reliable batsman in any format, and someone who can keep the scoreboard ticking over.
ReplyDeleteAli and du Plooy have both been disappointing, so far. However, I wouldn't drop Ali, but I'd bat him at five. On his day, we know that du Plooy is capable of big hitting and playing a big innings in T20s. He now has to go up several gears.
At the start of the T20 campaign, I thought we had a good top four and that our middle order would be capable of producing runs. But in four games we haven't reached 200 once.
Regarding the bowling, I'm less concerned. We need to post a total that gives our bowlers a decent chance of defending. I thought Scrimshaw and Khan did brilliantly last night to turn the screws on Leicestershire in the last overs. With 1-14 last night and 2-33 on Monday, Reece has reminded us what a useful bowler he can be in T20s.
Assuming Watt is injured, my XI against Warwickshire tonight would be:
Reece
Wood
Madsen
du Plooy
Ali
Guest
Dal/Came
McKiernan
Chappell
Scrimshaw
Khan
I don't recall that I have ever seen a better limited overs innings from a DCCC player than the one from Maddo last night. I should say that I have an enormous gap in my Derbyshire following career - roughly between Dean Jones' demise and Covid - so there may well have been other knocks of a similar vintage, and would be interested to learn from more dedicated followers what other contributions matched or surpassed it.
DeleteAs for our current woes, I was baffled by Anuj Dal getting the nod over McKiernan last night. Anuj is clearly the best fielder in the team, but he can't bowl at present and he's not really the sort to start clearing the boundary too often. McKiernan seems a decent fielder to me, is a proper bowler unlike a couple who were called upon last night and is probably the most likely of our lower order batters to hit up a quick 20 or 30.
This is an excellent blog, by the way Steve, and I hope that your recovery is going well (and that the rest of the cricket season and another year of third division football with The Mighty Rams don't set you back......)
Dom
Hi Dom thanks for the kind words. Yes, getting there slowly, but not likely to be at my best for a couple of months or so, according to the surgeon.
DeleteI couldn't recall any better. Barnett, Morris, Adams played good knocks in longer formats, as did Azharuddin. But the timing and placement last night was other worldly on a not straightforward track, as evidenced by Ackermann, a fine player, struggling with timing.
We should enjoy him while we can, because we won't see one like him in most of our lifetimes. Only Barnett compares for me, over a similar lengthy period.
And yes, McKiernan over Dal would have made a lot of sense last night. A puzzler, that one...
ReplyDeleteI will echo what everyone is saying about Wayne. A modern great and he really is carrying the side at the moment. I think if we are brutally honest we just aren’t as good as some of the strongest teams in our group. We don’t bat that deep and we rely massively on certain individuals. Our bowling hasn’t been as tight, either. I agree with others on here that there have been some odd decisions and some selections that don’t make that much sense to me. Also, I think in T20 cricket the margins are very fine. Ali hit a glorious six yesterday and probably needs a bit of luck. We are all saying how well Wood did last night - and I agree!- but he was extremely fortunate at the start of his innings various times. I’d stick with Ali - hopefully tonight is his night. Come on you Falcons!
ReplyDelete