On the back of two successive LV= County Championship victories in recent weeks, James Franklin and his Middlesex side head to Edgbaston to take on Warwickshire on Tuesday, with high hopes of continuing their winning run and maintaining the pressure on Yorkshire at the top of the Division One table.
Middlesex’s last victory, a hard earned win at Chester-le-Street against Durham, saw the Seaxes close the gap on league leaders Yorkshire by six points, to thirty, whilst heavy rain at Hove applied the brakes to Yorkshire’s own title charge, forcing them to settle for just a draw with Sussex.
With wins also eluding both Durham and Warwickshire in the last round of Championship matches, Middlesex’s victory saw them strengthen their position in second place and pull sixteen points clear of Nottinghamshire in third.
Whilst Middlesex have themselves been on a roll of late, Warwickshire’s own fortunes have been far less encouraging, with the Bears suffering consecutive defeats in their last two outings to slip to fourth in the table.
The Edgbaston hosts will be boosted by the return of England batsman Ian Bell, fresh from his Ashes series win, and his runs will be much welcomed by his Warwickshire teammates, who only managed to hit just 125 and 227 in defeat to struggling Hampshire and then 260 and 217 in defeat to Nottinghamshire last time out.
Edgbaston has not been a happy hunting ground for Middlesex in recent years however, with the Seaxes last championship victory there coming all the way back in the 2001 season, when a certain Angus Fraser, no doubt looking a touch more spritely way back then, picked up a six wicket match-winning haul.
That said, Middlesex had a very similar record at Durham, where they hadn’t won since 2002, when Gus Fraser was the skipper, and we all know what happened up in Durham in our last game!
Whilst the return of Bell sees Warwickshire closer to full strength for this forthcoming clash, Middlesex travel to the midlands with their tails up and will be optimistic that they can secure their third County Championship victory in a row and just hope that Yorkshire slip up against a Somerset side who whilst in sixth spot, will be keen to gain the points that will pull them clear of the fight for survival at the bottom of the table.
Middlesex have named the following 14-man squad to take on Warwickshire: James Franklin (c), Nick Compton, Neil Dexter, Stephen Eskinazi, James Harris, Dawid Malan, Tim Murtagh, Ravi Patel, Ollie Rayner, Sam Robson, Toby Roland-Jones, Gurjit Sandhu, John Simpson (wk), Paul Stirling.
Please note with the match starting in September play is due to start at 10.30am with the toss at 10am.
