Derbyshire “fearless” on return to the topflight

Wayne Madsen has stated his side are in it to win it and have to be “fearless” upon their return to division one of LV= County Championship. 

Derbyshire are featuring in the top flight for just the second time, since the two tier split in 2000, following promotion last year.

Madsen’s men are the favourites to be relegated, but that isn’t going to affect his team’s mentality, as they will be approaching each match looking for victory. With only three points for a draw and 16 for a win, the South African realises what his county are up against.

Madsen said on the preseason trip to Barbados told the ECB: “You start the season looking to win it (the championship). There’s no point in us trying to just survive and stay in the division; if you do that, you’re going to be fighting at the bottom.

“We’re going to look to play positive cricket, fearless cricket exactly like we did last year and we’ll see where that takes us.

“You have to win games if you want to finish anywhere in the table and that’s what we did last year. We were able to win more games than anyone else, hence we won division two.”

Madsen wants his young side to build upon their championship winning season.

He continued: “We’ve started to get that winning mentality and the guys have learnt to finish off games, both with the bat and ball. That’s going to be a big asset to us.”

Derbyshire have added West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul to their side, who has 10,722 Test runs to his name and Madsen knows he is the “man to look out for.”

Despite the threat Chanderpaul will bring at the County Ground, Madsen is adamant his youngsters can’t be overlooked after their achievements last season.

“We’ve got a few youngsters coming through,” he added.

“Our bowling line up did particularly well for us last year and on the batting front we’ve got young Dan Redfern in the middle order and a few older heads at the top, who contributed last year and will be looking to do more of the same.”