Madsen hopeful of World Cup return

Derbyshire and Italy captain, Wayne Madsen, is hopeful of returning to action with the Azzurri during the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, despite suffering a dislocated shoulder in their opening group game.

Madsen left the field during the fourth over of Monday’s game against Scotland when diving to field a ball in the 30-yard circle and was ruled out of the second fixture against Nepal after being assessed by Italy’s medical staff.

Speaking ahead of the Nepal game, Madsen provided an update on his fitness:

“The scans have been pretty positive for a dislocation,” he said.

“I won’t play [against Nepal], we’re going to give it another 48/72 hours to let it settle and give myself a chance for next week. It’s not an ideal situation, in terms of doing it at the start of the competition, but I’m hopeful that with a bit of rest, I might be able to play a part in this tournament still.”

Italy’s remaining group games come against Nepal (today), England (Monday 16 Feb) and West Indies (Wednesday 19 Feb), with  still capable of progressing in their first-ever ICC World Cup event, despite the defeat to Scotland.

Despite his absence, Madsen believes Italy’s squad are more than capable of making their mark on the competition and says every player is relishing the prospect of making history on the global stage.

“We’ve got a squad of 15 players and everyone is deserving of being here,” he added.

“I didn’t play in the last warm-up game, where we beat the U.A.E. pretty convincingly and we have players who can win us games throughout the squad, so the conversation has been around refocussing after our first game, because it wasn’t the start we wanted. We have another opportunity to show our skills on the world stage, Nepal are a very good outfit but the focus for us is what we need to do to win the game.

“We’ve seen with a number of associate teams at the start of this tournament, T20 cricket brings the competition levels a lot closer and it only takes special performances from a couple of players to win a game. We can take a lot of confidence from watching Nepal’s game against England, but also the other games.

“There’s been some really good performances from associate teams already, and we’ve come in with a lot of belief at the start of the tournament, so for us it’s about backing ourselves and taking the game on, that’s the message to the players.”

Madsen will return from the World Cup to lead Derbyshire into the 2026 season, supported by the additions of Mohammad Abbas, Matt Montgomery and Shoaib Bashir, as well as the return of county cricket’s leading run-scorer in 2025, Caleb Jewell.

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