Middlesex First Team Coach, Richard Johnson, has named a squad of fourteen to face Northamptonshire in the LV= Insurance County Championship at Wantage Road this week, with just one addition to the squad that was named to face Essex at Lord's last week.
After an impressive pre-season, all-rounder Martin Andersson comes into the squad, to offer more options with both bat and ball, and he joins the same thirteen that lost out in the opening round to Essex.
Against Essex, Middlesex were undone by a quality new-ball attack, of Jamie Porter and Sam Cook, who picked up thirteen wickets between them in the match, accounting for Middlesex's top order batters cheaply in both innings. By comparison, Middlesex's opening bowlers took some time to settle, allowing Essex to post quick early runs, which proved to be a telling difference in what was ultimately a low-scoring affair over the four days at Lord's.
Seven wickets for new Captain Toby Roland-Jones and five for the evergreen Tim Murtagh were positives to take with the ball, whilst impressive knocks for John Simpson, Ryan Higgins and Luke Hollman, showed some quality and depth with the bat against a strong Essex attack.
The side travel to Northampton for round two of the County Championship, and like Middlesex, Northants were on the wrong end of the result in their opener last week. They came unstuck against a Kent side who ran out winners by seven wickets in Canterbury.
This week's hosts were rolled for just 117 in their first innings, with only Ricardo Vasconcelos and former Middlesex man, Gareth Berg, making double figure scores, although a fine unbeaten hundred from Rob Keogh in the second innings, and half centuries from Hasan Azad and Berg showed that they've got plenty of mettle about them as they posted an impressive 331 to fight their way back into the game.
The Northants squad has been boosted by the short-term signings of two Australian pacemen, Chris Tremain and Lance Morris, with the former available for Northants' opening three County Championship encounters, and Morris the next three. On is Northants debut, it was Tremain who did most of the damage with the ball against Kent, as the New South Wales born right-arm quick impressed for his new Club, picking up seven wickets in the match, including 5 for 44 in the first innings.
Middlesex will be keen to shake of the disappointment of that opening round defeat to Essex, and against Northants they'll be keen to put right some of the wrongs from that clash, however they'll need to get into the game right from the very first ball against another strong and testing new ball attack.
Middlesex have named the following fourteen-man squad for this week's clash against Northamptonshire:
Northamptonshire
Middlesex
