Madsen believes squad will learn from T20 season

Wayne Madsen says Derbyshire’s squad will learn from this season’s Vitality Blast campaign.

The Falcons are now unable to qualify for the knockout stages, with the possible tally of eight points not enough to reach the quarter-finals as a best third- placed team, with Derbyshire still looking for their first victory in the competition.

The side followed up a heavy defeat to Durham on Friday night with a much-improved performance against group-leaders Notts Outlaws, falling narrowly short in the pursuit of a club-record run-chase of 199.

Despite the disappointment of being unable to follow-up last season’s run to Finals Day with another successful Twenty20 season, Madsen believes the group’s developing players will benefit from the challenges they’re facing.

“For us, especially our young bowling attack, this is an opportunity for us to continue developing and learn over the next few games,” Madsen told BBC Radio Derby

“We may be out of the competition, but they’re still competitive T20 matches and we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we’re on top of our games and we keep improving, we’ve shown a bit of improvement (against Notts), compared with how we played so far.

“Our bowlers have been thrown in at the deep end, with quite a few making their debuts in this this year, so to gain experience under the pressures of T20 is a great learning experience for those guys, and it will continue to build us as a team.”

The batsman struck a brilliant 68 in the defeat at Trent Bridge and, along with Matt Critchley, seemed to be steering the Falcons to a famous win over their local rivals.

However, both men departed with a sizable chunk of the chase still to make, which Derbyshire would be unable to manage, despite the best efforts of Alex Hughes, who hit an unbeaten 36.

Madsen says the improvement in this performance was clear to see, but he was frustrated he could not see the job through in Nottingham.

“Obviously it’s frustrating that we didn’t get there, but we played much better than we did against Durham, so there’s certainly positives to take from how we performed,” Madsen added.

“I thought Dustin (Melton) bowled really well on his (T20) debut, and then Yozza (Alex Hughes) bowled really well through the middle overs. I think if Critch and I were able to bat a bit long, we’d have been able to get across the line.

“In T20, it only takes a couple of players to do well and you can get a big total, on your day you have to cash in and, unfortunately, I just couldn’t take it a little bit further and get us over the line.”

Vitality Blast is back! Derbyshire Falcons return to Twenty20. Follow every game live on our match centre at derbyshireccc.com. Derbyshire Falcons: Underestimated No More