While County Championship fixtures are played out across the country this weekend, Birmingham is braced for a change of pace when the curtain rises on the T20 Blast on Saturday, and in dramatic style. For the first time the England and Wales Cricket Board launches the competition with a big-venue doubleheader, the significant novelty of this domestic season having inevitably been named “Blast Off”.
Warwickshire play Yorkshire and Derbyshire play Lancashire as four of the eight teams who reached last year’s quarter-finals gather at Edgbaston, which will also host finals day in July. But, having completed the competition’s collection of Birmingham-based bookends, Blast Off must now demonstrate whether it is a gimmick or terrific.
“It’s important to start the competition off with a bang,” says Derbyshire’s Wayne Madsen. “It’s about awareness. Last year if felt like it took a while for people to catch on that the Blast had started and that’s the key for the ECB and the counties, to make it known that the T20 has started and try to attract people down to the ground.”
Derbyshire’s involvement in Blast Off has involved a unique sacrifice: their meeting with Lancashire is nominally a home fixture, meaning they will play only five at the County Ground this year and one in Chesterfield. Glen Chapple, the Lancashire coach, has said giving up a home game would have significantly diminished his side’s chances of winning the competition; Madsen has a more optimistic outlook.
“We’ve actually played well at Edgbaston over the years,” he says of a side that has won their last two T20s there. “From a commercial point of view I think it’s beneficial for the club and, as a result, for the team as well. It’s great exposure for us as a group, it lets us show where we are as a team, and if anything it’ll just be good practice for later on in the competition when and if we get to the final. As a whole it’s a good concept for us as a team and a club.”
Like fellow Blast Off contestants Yorkshire, Derbyshire are yet to win a County Championship game this season, with the Blast bringing a chance to change focus and shift momentum. “It’s definitely a good time to have a bit of a reset,” Madsen says. “It’s obviously been a disappointing start. We’ve had a couple of decent performances, but we haven’t got the results we’d have liked and we haven’t had any momentum. So I’d say this comes at a great time for us as a group.”
There are certainly worse times to play Lancashire, who because of the Indian Premier League will be without Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone and Phil Salt. “If they’re missing a couple of superstars it’s handy for us,” says Madsen, “but we’re still going to have to play well.”
The potential, Madsen says, is there. At 39 he is Derbyshire’s all-time leading T20 run-scorer, and in all formats has scored 19,770 runs in 426 appearances for them over 15 years, but has never got further than the semi-finals.
“We have a really nicely balanced team this year,” he says. “Haider Ali’s going to win us games in this format. Our top four is going to be crucial – we’re going to need to get the bulk of the runs for us to be successful – and we’ve got the bowling attack to win games as well. I’m really hungry to achieve success.
“Mickey [Arthur] has come in [as head of cricket in 2021] and helped re-energise me, and his winning mentality and nature has kickstarted me again. I’ve got a massive hunger and a desire to play well for the team and try to get us that elusive trophy.”
