ANOTHER gallant but vain chase led by skipper Wayne Madsen was the best Derbyshire could take from their NatWest t20 Blast trip to Trent Bridge last night.
Madsen equalled the new career-best 65 he set the previous week and shared a stand of 103 which equalled the Derbyshire record for the fourth wicket but all that added up to was a 27-run defeat after Nottinghamshire scored far too many.
Gareth Cross added 54 in that stand with Madsen as the Falcons scored a more than respectable 179-7, though that could not match the Outlaws' 206-5, in which Riki Wessels led the way.
Wessels is so much in the zone right now that anyone near him is liable to have to pay the congestion charge.
In the week he was capped, Wessels hit an unbeaten 74 to seal a Championship win against Middlesex and 66 off 31 balls in the Outlaws' highest-ever t20 score, 220-4, at Leicester.
His unbeaten 95 came off only 51 balls, included 10 fours and four sixes and carried Notts over 200 for the second successive night. Talk about running into the wrong man at the wrong time.
Yet the Falcons could feel they had made a decent start by removing Phil Jaques (11), Alex Hales (23) and Samit Patel (7) before any of them, who have all hurt Derbyshire in the past, could really get going.
But Wessels was making good use of the very short boundary in front of the new stand and was clearing a fair few of the longer ones too.
When he moved to 94 off the penultimate ball of the 18th over, he looked nailed on for a century but James Taylor skied the next ball to deep cover and Wessels was to face only one more ball.
However, Steven Mullaney clouted three sixes and a four off nine balls (the other five he faced were dots) for an unbeaten 24 that made an already mountainous task a little higher.
Derbyshire got 20 off the first two overs but, off the third ball of the third, came another in what is already a sorry catalogue of run-outs with Chesney Hughes at the centre of it.
Hughes, recalled because of a quadriceps injury to Wes Durston, clipped the ball to backward point for a clear single but, with Stephen Moore three-quarters of the way down the wicket, he sent his partner back to an inevitable fate.
Moore went for 13 and Hughes, whose first scoring shot was a six, was not able to make amends before playing on to Luke Fletcher for 17 at 40-2 in the sixth.
Marcus North could make no sort of impact this time and though Cross and Madsen did all they could to keep their side in the hunt, the asking rate was climbing ever higher.
Cross, promoted to number three, had by far his best day with the bat for the Falcons to celebrate his 30th birthday, with 54 off 36 balls, including five fours and a six, before he fell at 160-4 in the 18th over.
The partnership equalled the 103 made by Wavell Hinds and Jamie Pipe for the fourth wicket at Old Trafford in 2008.
Madsen would not abandon the cause and moved on to 65 off 36 balls with eight fours and two sixes before he middled the last ball of the 19th over straight to extra cover.
The game was as good as up by then anyway and Derbyshire have reached the midway stage of the competition still looking for their first win.
meklid@derbytelegraph.co.uk
