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MIDDLESEX V GLAMORGAN | MATCH REPORT

Match report provided by the ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay.

DAY ONE

Middlesex’s bowlers shared the wickets around as they dismissed Glamorgan for 199 to take control on the opening day of their Rothesay County Championship Division Two encounter at Lord’s.

Skipper Toby Roland-Jones led a mid-afternoon recovery with three for 44 after Glamorgan had looked well-placed at 108 for one, while Middlesex debutant Dane Paterson was among another trio to collect two wickets apiece.

Opener Zain ul Hassan top-scored with 65, his second 50-plus score in as many innings, but the visitors failed to build on that solid foundation and needed Ben Kellaway’s maiden half-century, a fearless unbeaten 54, to get then anywhere near 200.

Middlesex openers Stephen Eskinazi and Nathan Fernandes reached stumps unscathed with an unbroken stand of 63 in response to leave their side trailing by 136 going into the second day.

The home side were finally able to include Paterson, whose commitments with Western Province had delayed his arrival at Lord’s by a fortnight and the South African seamer found some early swing after his side won the toss in cloudy conditions.

Ul Hassan survived two lbw appeals when Paterson made balls straighten up down the slope and there was another close call for the opener, whose leading edge looped up just short of Roland-Jones in his follow-through.

Yet Glamorgan made steady progress and it was one of Paterson’s wider deliveries that brought the breakthrough, with Eddie Byrom caught behind pushing at a ball well away from his body.

Sam Northeast – who became holder of the record individual score at Lord’s when he hit an unbeaten 335 in this fixture last year – was fortunate to escape an early dismissal, walking into a Henry Brookes delivery that appeared to hit his pads flush in front of the stumps.

However, the Glamorgan captain remained at the crease alongside Ul Hassan, who punched Brookes’ penultimate ball of the morning through the covers for three to raise his second successive half-century.

Paterson prised out Northeast after lunch, persuading him to nibble outside off stump and, with the visitors starting to become desperately bogged down, three more wickets followed in the space of 11 balls.

Roland-Jones accounted for two of those including the scalp of Ul Hassan, caught at second slip after Leus du Plooy’s brief juggling act, while Brookes removed the dangerous Colin Ingram as wicketkeeper Jack Davies claimed his fourth dismissal.

Kellaway counter-attacked, dispatching Brookes for a couple of sweetly-struck boundaries which briefly lifted the shackles before Middlesex’s seamers re-established their grip on the innings.

Ryan Higgins, at that stage the sole wicketless member of the quartet, made amends by collecting two in successive overs as he moved the ball away to clip the top of Chris Cooke’s off stump and then had Timm van der Gugten taken low at slip.

Having done his best to marshal the tail, Kellaway stepped up a gear once Ned Leonard and Shoaib Bashir had fallen to Zafar Gohar either side of the tea interval, clubbing the spinner for successive fours and slamming Paterson to midwicket fence as well.

Kellaway’s well-deserved half-century arrived courtesy of another leg-side four off Paterson and his efforts had guided Glamorgan tantalisingly close to the 200 mark when Roland-Jones dismissed last man Asitha Fernando.

Despite scoring only nine in his four previous innings this season, Fernandes looked assured as he and Eskinazi launched the home side’s reply, flicking Fernando past square leg for an early boundary.

Eskinazi began more sedately, but gradually overtook his partner as they chipped away at the deficit and the pair had posted 34 and 26 respectively when bad light brought play to a close.