Dave Tickner expects Derbyshire's Wayne Madsen to star in the first of this week's NatWest T20 Blast quarter-finals.
Recommended Bets: Derbyshire v Hampshire
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The first of this week’s NatWest T20 Blast quarter-finals features a team bidding for a record seventh Finals Day appearance against the only one of this year’s quarter-finalists never to have reached one.
That experience could prove vital and the simplest bet here is probably to ignore Derbyshire’s home advantage and back Hampshire’s vast experience of knockout T20 cricket to get them over the line at 4/5.
It’s hard to get away from the horror of Hampshire’s defeat against Somerset in Friday’s final round of group games, though. Bowled out for just 91, beaten by 98 runs, and as a result out of the top two and denied a home quarter-final.
And while Derbyshire may seem a kind enough away draw for Hants, the results at Derby (and one game at Chesterfield) say different: five wins, one no result, one defeat. And that one defeat came against Notts, the best team in the competition.
Even so, winning a T20 quarter-final is a step into the unknown for Derbyshire and I’d want slightly more than 11/10 before getting involved.
If Derbyshire are to reach the last four, though, it seems certain Wayne Madsen will play a part. He’s the third highest runscorer in the competition this season with four half-centuries (as well as a 49* and a 47) but it’s his bowling that’s been a revelation.
Before last season Madsen had bowled just once in a T20 – taking 0-12 from two overs in a hopeless cause against Notts back in 2013. In 2016 he bowled a handful of times, picking up three wickets during the season.
This year, he has bowled in all 13 games he has played, and not just bits and pieces either: he’s bowled 46 of a possible 52 overs, often opening the bowling, and taken 13 wickets. Remarkably, he has taken at least one wicket in each of his last 10 T20 games for Derbyshire. Not bad for a second string to the bow.
And, allied to his prolific run-scoring and Derbyshire’s rock-solid home form, it makes me think 9/1 about Madsen in the man-of-the-match market has to be a spot of value. His overall career record of five man-of-the-match awards in 85 games suggests not, but the bulk of that came before switching to a genuine all-rounder. He’s been man of the match twice in that current 10-game wicket-taking run, while also being denied the gong by a 50-ball Riki Wessels century when contributing 2-32 and 86 not out in defeat at Notts.
Preview posted at 1818 BST on 21/08/17
