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DERBYSHIRE V MIDDLESEX | MATCH REPORT

Match report provided by the ECB Reporters Network.

DAY THREE

Middlesex wrapped up their fifth win of the Division Two season to keep their Vitality County Championship promotion challenge mathematically still alive after a dismal Derbyshire succumbed to a three-day defeat by an innings and 66 runs at the Incora County Ground.

With skipper Toby Roland-Jones continuing his impressive streak of form with another five-wicket haul, Derbyshire, 74 for three overnight, were shot out for 119 after 87 minutes of the day’s only session.

Roland-Jones finished with five for 38 for match figures of 10 for 72. The 36-year-old seamer has taken five wickets or more in six of his last nine innings to total 52 wickets for the season. Ethan Bamber and leg spinner Luke Hollman picked up two wickets each, with 20-year-old left-arm seamer Noah Cornwell completing their demise with his maiden first-class wicket.

The result means that the race for promotion goes down to the final round, although last week’s defeat against Gloucestershire at Lord’s left the odds stacked heavily against Middlesex, handing second-placed Yorkshire a 15-point advantage going into this week’s games.

A seventh defeat of the season means that Derbyshire are almost certain to finish bottom of Division Two for the first time since 2016 after a poor

season under head coach Mickey Arthur.

It will be the 16th time in their Championship history that Derbyshire have finished bottom of the pile, comfortably ahead of nearest challengers Somerset.

On a pitch that was lively throughout, making life difficult for batters against both the quicker bowlers and spinners, Derbyshire lost their last eight wickets for 45 runs, veteran Wayne Madsen top-scoring with a modest 32 and concussion stand-in Mitch Wagstaff making 27.

In gloomy conditions that required the floodlights to be on at the start, the breakthrough that Middlesex made when Wagstaff was out in the last over of day two opened the way to four more wickets in the first 45 minutes as Derbyshire subsided somewhat feebly.

Madsen, who had helped Wagstaff add 58 for the third wicket, was the first to go, edging behind off Bamber.

If the Derbyshire veteran was undone by a fine delivery, there was less that could be said in mitigation as David Lloyd pulled straight to midwicket, handing a second wicket to the Warwickshire-bound Bamber.

Aneurin Donald, dropped at backward point the ball before Lloyd departed, added only one more run before giving Roland-Jones a low return catch; Zak Chappell edged his first ball to gully.

Those two in two balls took the Middlesex captain to 51 wickets for the season, the 36-year-old seamer’s second half-century in three seasons and evidence of why the county have offered him a contract extension while letting other senior players move on.

Harry Moore was caught behind off an inside edge to give Roland-Jones his second five-for of the match before Jack Morley edged low to slip off Hollman and Cornwell bowled Alex Thomson with the fourth ball of his solitary over.

DAY TWO

Middlesex are on track for the win they need to keep their Vitality County Championship promotion challenge alive going into the final week of the season after maintaining their dominance over bottom-of-the-table Derbyshire.

Having bowled Derbyshire out for 173 on Tuesday, Middlesex replied with 358, opener Mark Stoneman making a superb 115, Josh De Caires matching his career-best 80 and Max Holden posting 68 despite a dry, turning pitch that saw six wickets shared among Derbyshire’s spinners and 17-year-old fast bowling prospect Harry Moore impress with three for 73 in only his second first class match.

Needing 186 to make Middlesex bat again, Derbyshire lost two wickets in the first five overs of their second innings and another from the last ball of the day to close on 74 for three after 19.2 overs.

A win here would be worth 22 points to Middlesex, who started the week 15 points behind second-placed Yorkshire. However, after last week’s defeat by Gloucestershire at Lord’s took matters out of their own hands, they need other results to go their way, while their own campaign ends with an away fixture against Division Two leaders Sussex.

Middlesex banked maximum bowling bonus points on day one and had looked well placed at 125 for one overnight to push for a full set of batting points.

That they were able to take only three of the five on offer was largely down to a morning session that saw Derbyshire’s spinners claim four wickets, while the best part of 36 overs yielded only 82 runs.

From 162 for one, four wickets fell for 45. Holden, who shared a 162-run stand with Stoneman, was first to depart, bowled behind his legs by the on-loan Lancashire left-arm spinner Jack Morley, who would finish with three for 76.

Stoneman played magnificently, completing a chanceless hundred from 170 balls, having hit 17 fours, but could little influence events at the other end as Leus Du Plooy - returning to his former patch for the first time since move - was struck in front by off-spinner Alex Thomson, who then bowled Ryan Higgins middle and leg with one that turned sharply.

David Lloyd, the Derbyshire captain, joined in for the last over of the session and was rewarded from his third delivery bowling off spin as Jack Davies edged to second slip.

After lunch, another sharply turning ball ultimately did for Stoneman, who lost his middle stump to Thomson at 234 for six, before De Caires and Luke Hollman mounted a counter-attack, although one helped by Wayne Madsen, at slip, dropping De Caires on 21 off Morley.

It was after that let-off that runs began to flow more readily against the second new ball, De Caires and Hollman ultimately adding 74 - 53 of them after De Caires’s escape.

Their partnership was ended when Moore, the 17-year-old England Under-19 who is exciting Derbyshire’s coaching staff, beat Hollman for pace, following up by having Toby Roland-Jones caught off a top-edged hook.

Moore picked up his third when Ethan Bamber’s edge was taken diving to his right by ‘keeper Brooke Guest before De Caires was leg before to Morley attempting a reverse hit.

Roland-Jones, with figures of five for 34 in the first innings, quickly had Derbyshire in trouble at 16 for two after Harry Came and Guest were leg before to balls well pitched up, before Madsen and Mitch Wagstaff - in as a concussion replacement for Luis Reece - decided to meet attack with attack and added 42 in four overs before Middlesex took steps to regain control.

Hollman’s leg-spin ended their partnership with what became the last ball of the day, having Wagstaff caught behind.

The absent Reece batted and bowled on day one but subsequently complained of feeling unwell, which was put down to a delayed reaction following his involvement in a minor road accident last weekend. The protocols around replacements require the stand-in to be a like-for-like player. As a left-handed, top-order batter, 21-year-old Wagstaff qualifies on one of those counts, but as a leg-spinner rather than a seamer was not permitted to bowl.

DAY ONE

Middlesex, trying to close a 15-point gap behind second-placed Yorkshire in the promotion race, utterly dominated an afternoon in Derby where the home side, attempting to overcome their own 19-point deficit to elude a first wooden spoon since 2016, lost six wickets for three runs in 43 balls.

With Toby Roland-Jones returning five for 40 in all, Derbyshire ignominiously sank from 130 for two to an eventual 173. The decline set in when Harry Came fell for 66 as the Middlesex captain extended his recent superb sequence to 36 wickets at 16.92 in six matches.

Led by Mark Stoneman’s rampant, unbeaten 79, Middlesex then romped through the evening, too, reaching 125 for one in reply on the first day of a vital Vitality County Championship meeting for them. No home seamer could match the accuracy and late movement on an occasionally two-paced pitch that meant “TRJ” claimed all his five scalps bowled or LBW.

Belatedly exploiting conditions after Ryan Higgins’s outswing had undone Luis Reecs for 20, he first removed Brooke Guest, missed by Noah Cornwell off his own bowling when three but out for seven 50 minutes from lunch, which arrived at 99 for two.

Startling carnage then swept in from nowhere from the afternoon’s seventh over. Came lost off stump and, after Wayne Madsen top-edged a cut at Ethan Bamber to first slip to go for 20, Roland-Jones knocked over two more for ducks and a then a third without score once David Lloyd had returned a catch to Bamber for two.

Derisive applause greeted the single that finally took Derbyshire off 133, the score at which the last hapless trio had fallen, and the former England man’s spell ended with 8-5-6-4. It took the 17-year old bowler Harry Moore, in only his third first-class innings, and spinner Jack Morley, on loan from Lancashire, to add 35 for the ninth wicket.

Having resisted 38 balls for one run, Morley unaccountably then leapt out to Luke Hollman’s leg spin and was bowled by his 39^th before Moore miscued a lofted drive to deep mid-on for 32, which brought tea two overs early.

In five of their last eight completed innings, Derbyshire had failed to better their 173 here. But Middlesex were aware at the interval that Yorkshire were doing well in Cardiff and that Sussex, the other side above them, already seemed well set for success in Bristol.

If the obvious task was to make their own advantage now count, it didn’t help that the second ball of the reply, a half-volley from Zak Chappell, was clipped by Sam Robson low to mid-on. But their response to being one down without a run scored was full-on aggression: a dozen fours had come by the twelfth over.

Chappell, who’d received his county cap in a presentatiom at the start, could celebrate no further as the two left-handers, Stoneman and Max Holden plundered 71 in the hour that took the former to his first fifty for eleven innings, off only 41 balls.

olden, the foil to Stoneman’s belligerence, moved quietly on to 44 and the pair will resume their 125-run partnership on Wedneday with Middlesex only 48 in arrears.