After a gap of nine seasons Wayne Madsen has been reappointed captain of Derbyshire. Heritage Officer David Griffin reflects on Madsen’s previous four seasons as club captain.
Wayne Madsen becomes the fourth Derbyshire captain to be reappointed after either stepping down or being forced to give up the captaincy following in the steps of AE ‘Bertie’ Lawton prior to the first World War, John Chapman either side of the same war, and Luke Sutton who captained the side in 2004 and 2005 before leaving to join Lancashire and then resuming the captaincy for one season on his return in 2011.
It was Madsen who succeeded Sutton after the latter’s unexpected retirement from the game in early 2012 and it was Madsen who lifted the county’s first trophy since 1993 when his side won the County Championship second division in the first year of his captaincy.
There have been 45 appointed captains of Derbyshire although as many as 115 players have led the side in at least one format of the game.
Thirteen of those have captained the side more than one hundred times, including Madsen, although it’s highly unlikely that anyone will match Kim Barnett’s 537 appearances as captain, more than twice as any other player.
Madsen will, however, have a chance to move up the list with Dominic Cork and Billy Godleman only just ahead of him.
| Captain | First Class | List A | T20 | Total |
| Kim Barnett | 271 | 266 | 0 | 537 |
| Donald Carr | 226 | 0 | 0 | 226 |
| Guy Jackson | 226 | 0 | 0 | 226 |
| Derek Morgan | 143 | 25 | 0 | 168 |
| Dominic Cork | 62 | 82 | 5 | 149 |
| Billy Godleman | 85 | 32 | 31 | 148 |
| Wayne Madsen | 67 | 34 | 31 | 132 |
| Arthur Richardson | 127 | 0 | 0 | 127 |
| Luke Sutton | 51 | 49 | 26 | 126 |
| Ian Buxton | 72 | 53 | 0 | 125 |
| Guy Willatt | 114 | 0 | 0 | 114 |
| Eddie Barlow | 55 | 51 | 0 | 106 |
| Albert Lawton | 105 | 0 | 0 | 105 |
Madsen captained Derbyshire before he was formally appointed into the role, leading the team in three Clydesdale Bank 40 matches at the end of 2011, defeating Yorkshire at Chesterfield in his first match largely thanks to Martin Guptill’s 81-ball hundred.
The 2012 season was his most successful season, leading Derbyshire to promotion, while over the course of his 67 appearances in first class matches as captain he scored 4,459 runs at an average of 40.90 with a highest score of 231 not out, making nine hundreds and 27 fifties.
He was equally effective in one day cricket making 1,011 runs in his 34 matches as captain, averaging 42.12 with two hundreds and five fifties, and his 687 runs at 25.44 in T20 cricket came ahead of his late career emergence as Derbyshire’s finest player in the shortest format of the game.
Madsen’s final game as appointed captain was against Leicestershire at Derby in September 2015 when he made 95 and 66 in a drawn game, although in 2021 he deputised for Billy Godleman in two early season first class games against Durham and Nottinghamshire.
