Statistical Preview: 2026 Season

Derbyshire are about to begin their 140th season of first class cricket with the team and numerous players on the threshold of statistical landmarks and records.

Heritage Officer David Griffin reveals the numbers to look out for.

There have been 2,894 scheduled first class games in Derbyshire’s history, although no play took place in 28 of them.

To date, Derbyshire have won 699 first class matches and everyone connected with the club will be hoping that the opening fixture of the season against Worcestershire at Derby will be the 700^th.

Those first 699 victories came against 34 different sides, including the other 17 counties with the most coming against Leicestershire (63), Somerset (51) and Glamorgan (49).

The fewest wins against the other counties is unsurprisingly Durham (6) who have only been playing first class cricket since 1992, although against the counties with first class status of a century or longer, Yorkshire have only been beaten 20 times.

Derbyshire concluded the 2025 season with an innings win of which there have been a total of 129; at the other end of the scale, Derbyshire won by one wicket on eight occasions, and by one run, just once.

The 699 wins have taken place on 85 different grounds although just one victory was achieved on 31 grounds, while Sheffield’s Abbeydale Park has uniquely seen a Derbyshire win as the home side and two as the away team.

Spectators at Derby have witnessed 194 wins, with 106 wins at Chesterfield and 33 at Ilkeston. The most wins on an away ground is 23 at Northampton.

Wayne Madsen played his 500^th all format game for Derbyshire last season, reaching the landmark during the Championship game against Middlesex at Lord’s in September and there are more potential landmarks for Madsen to reach in 2026.

He’s closing in on 16,000 first class runs and 24,000 all format runs and fitness permitting will play his 100^th first class game at Derby in the opening match of the season against Worcestershire, joining Kim Barnett (136), Levi Wright (116), Sam Cadman (107) and Harry Elliott (103) on reaching three figures at headquarters.

Barnett and Madsen collectively hold the majority of the Derbyshire batting records and given his recent form Madsen should take a step ahead of Barnett in one category; both have scored an all format hundred for the county in 17 different seasons, so one for Madsen this summer would see him overtake Barnett in that category.

Madsen rarely plays List A cricket for Derbyshire; just two games in that format since the end of 2019. However, having played 95 one day games for the county, he stands just five matches short of becoming the first player to make 100 appearances in all three forms of the game – first class, List A and T20, although, of course, his presence in the one day side will probably be dependent on his selection for The Hundred.

Luis Reece, having enjoyed a splendid season in the Championship with bat and ball in 2025 is on course to reach 200 first class wickets for the county and is within sight of 100 first class matches, too.

Brooke Guest should become the eighth Derbyshire wicketkeeper to complete 250 all format catches behind the wicket while Zak Chappell can expect to overtake Alex Hughes as the county’s highest wicket-taker in T20 cricket. He currently has 54 wickets in that format of the game requiring seven more to top the list.

There is one individual record which has now stood for 130 years, that of the highest score for Derbyshire. George Davidson made 274 against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 1896 and despite a further 57 double hundreds since, nobody has overtaken Derbyshire’s principal all-rounder of the Victoria era.

In the last four seasons, Derbyshire’s batters have passed 200 on seven occasions with Shan Masood’s 239, Leus du Plooy’s 238 not out and Caleb Jewell’s 232 in particular, tempting county followers to believe that the record was set to fall.

Amongst the current squad, Jewell, Madsen, Reece and Aneurin Donald (against Derbyshire) have made double centuries in first class cricket so their capacity for lengthy innings is already established.

In T20 cricket, Nye Donald has impressed since joining Derbyshire; the five fastest fifties in this format (by balls faced) have all been made by Donald over the course of the last two seasons with his six-hitting prowess impressing supporters as well.

To date, he’s struck 56 T20 sixes for the county at a rate of 2.33 per innings. By contrast, Wayne Madsen, Derbyshire’s leading T20 six-hitter with 113, strikes at a rate of 0.63 per innings. It seems inevitable that more T20 batting records are destined to fall to Donald in the coming seasons.

From a team perspective, Derbyshire will be looking to extend their remarkable run of T20 wins over Yorkshire at Chesterfield where they have won the last eight matches going back to 2015. Equally remarkable is that the first four T20 games against Yorkshire at Queen’s Park all resulted in wins for Yorkshire between 2008 and 2014 although they have failed to win there since.

Conversely, Derbyshire will be looking for their first win in the Championship against Lancashire since 1997, and their wait for a List A victory over Glamorgan currently stands at 16 years.

Whatever is set to befall Derbyshire in 2026, it’s almost certain that somewhere along the way, for the team, or for individuals, there’ll be some statistical feat to add to the record books.

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