Wayne Madsen

• Team

Few men epitomise cricketing loyalty more than Wayne Madsen. Ever since his 170* on debut for Derbyshire in 2009, the now 40-year-old has represented his adopted home with pride and will go down in the club’s folklore.

Since his maiden century Madsen has added a further 40 in over 400 matches for Derbyshire, scoring nearly 20,000 runs and notching 50 on 108 occasions.  

Taking over the captaincy in 2012, he immediately led Derbyshire to promotion for the first time in 20 years, a season which included his career-best 231.

Despite his side coming straight back down the following summer, the right-hander was the first player to reach 1,000 runs in Division One and was named the Championship Cricketer of the Year by the Cricket Writers’ Club.

Stepping down from the captaincy ahead of the 2016 summer, he once again passed 1,000 Championship runs, ending with 1,292 at 58.72 with only Ben Duckett and Sam Northeast scoring more.

In 2022, aged 38, he led the run-scoring charts for both divisions with 1,273 and last summer notched up the passed the magical 1,000-run mark once more to end the year top of the pile at Derbyshire.

No slouch in the shorter formats, the 40-year-old has added a further ten centuries and over 8,500 runs and would ultimately gain international recognition in the European Regional Qualifiers for the 2024 T20 World Cup.

Using an Italian passport, which had been his route to the County game back in 2009, he represented his grandmother’s homeland as the side just missed out on the showpiece event.