Middlesex’s trip to Hove on Friday night to take on Sussex in the NatWest T20 Blast campaign will see us coming up against the Sharks’ high profile overseas signing, Mahela Jayawardena, who is representing the Hove based outfit for the first seven group matches of this year’s campaign.
Jayawardena has settled in well and is already the Sharks’ leading run scorer in the competition, with 118 runs from Sussex’s opening three matches, the last two of which the Sharks have won, against Gloucestershire and Somerset, having narrowly lost their opening game against Kent.
The Sharks are captained this term by the seasoned Luke Wright, who despite being on thirty, is hugely experienced in the short format of the game, having travelled around the globe in recent years, representing numerous teams in their respective twenty20 showpiece competitions.
Sussex will be hampered by the absence of some key performers though on Friday through injury, including the reliable and experienced head of Michael Yardy, who is ruled out with a calf injury.
Fresh from a fantastic 115 run win against Kent at Lord’s tonight, Middlesex go into this, their third group game of the campaign on a high. We will continue to miss left arm spinner Ravi Patel through injury, although the addition of young leg-spinner Nathan Sowter, who picked up two wickets on debut tonight has been a real bonus. The squad is also boosted by the recent additions of Eoin Morgan, and South African Kyle Abbott, both having returned from the IPL this week.
Middlesex have named a 13-man squad to play against Sussex:
Eoin Morgan (captain), Kyle Abbott, Andy Balbirnie, Joe Burns, Nick Compton, James Franklin, James Harris, Dawid Malan, Harry Podmore, Toby Roland-Jones, John Simpson, Nathan Sowter, Paul Stirling.
