Middlesex head back into Vitality Blast action again tomorrow afternoon, for the first of two back-to-back away matches, with a trip to Cheltenham to play Gloucestershire at 5pm tomorrow at the College Ground, followed by a short trip to Wales to take on Cardiff at Sophia Gardens on Friday night at 6.30pm.
We head into these matches off the back of our last two games being completely washed out without a ball bowled, last Friday night at the Kia Oval, when heavy rain over London forced an early cancellation of the Sky televised fixture, and again at Radlett on Saturday, when heavy overnight rain waterlogged the pitch, only for the ground-staff to spend four hours mopping up, before another monsoon like spell of rain put an end to any hopes of getting a game on.
We currently sit on five points from ten matches played, bottom of the South Group table, just one point adrift of Kent Spitfires on six, and two behind Hampshire Hawks on seven. Whilst mathematically any hopes of progressing to the knockout stages are not yet completely dead and buried, we would need to win all four of our remaining fixtures and pray for numerous results elsewhere to go in our favour to give us any chance of moving forwards to the quarter finals.
Below, you can see previews of both forthcoming matches, being played on Thursday afternoon and Friday night.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE PREVIEW
Gloucestershire are our hosts on Thursday afternoon, and we arrive at Cheltenham College tomorrow looking for the first of four wins needed to keep any hopes of us progressing alive.
In Gloucestershire we face a side who sit mid-table in fifth place in the South Group, on eleven points, with a record of five wins, four losses and one tie from their ten matches played.
We again play Gloucestershire in the return fixture at Chelmsford on the 18th July, so getting one over them tomorrow in Cheltenham will give us a big confidence boost ahead of our final home clash of the campaign against them, being played at the Cloud County Ground the following Thursday.
Gloucestershire come into the game off the back of a win against their West Country rivals, Somerset, last Sunday, when they successfully chased down Somerset's total of 194 to win by five wickets with one ball of the game spare.
With the exception of Cameron Bancroft, who fell early in the chase for a duck, all other batters in the top and middle order contributed to the victory, with Miles Hammond and Beau Webster top scoring with 41 and 39 respectively.
So far this season, Gloucestershire's batting has been led by Miles Hammond, who has amassed 296 runs to this point of the competition, and he sits within the top ten leading run scorers in the competition across both the North and South Groups. He leads the way from Bancroft, who has 224 runs, followed by James Taylor with 197, Webster with 148, James Bracey with 144 and Ben Charlesworth with 142.
With the ball, the experience of seamer David Payne has proved to be Gloucestershire's most effective weapon this term, with the left-armer picking up an impressive 18 wickets at an average of just 14.72 at a miserly economy rate of just 6.65 runs per over. Another left-arm quick, Matthew Taylor, is just one behind him on 17, and these two sit as the second highest and joint third highest wicket-takers in the competition overall at this stage. Josh Shaw is the only other member of the Gloucestershire attack to currently be in double figures, with the right-arm seamer picking up ten wickets to date.
Last time out in 2023, Gloucestershire had the better of both outings, doing the double over Middlesex, narrowly winning by two runs at Merchant Taylors' School at the end of May in a game that we should have won, before they beat us by seven wickets in Bristol a week later in early June.
Tomorrow's game is a real must win for Middlesex, and we can go into the game knowing that anything but a victory will put an early end to our campaign.
We have named a fourteen-man squad for Thursday afternoon's clash with Gloucestershire:
GLAMORGAN PREVIEW
The following day we head to Cardiff, where we'll take on Glamorgan, hoping that a win the previous day will have kept our outside hopes of a late push for qualification still on track.
Any other result on Thursday afternoon will see us playing merely for pride in Wales, so all we can hope for is that we deliver the goods in Cheltenham to make Friday night's encounter under the lights against Glamorgan a meaningful contest.
Glamorgan's form to this point in the competition sees them heading into Friday's match sat in sixth place in the South Group table, with a record of four wins, five losses and one rain off from their opening ten games to date. Their haul of nine points puts them two ahead of Hampshire in seventh and two behind Gloucestershire in fifth.
Glamorgan's wins in the competition have come against Sussex in Cardiff in their second match of the campaign, Middlesex at Lord's in their third, Sussex in Hove in their ninth, and Essex in Cardiff in their last outing.
They come into Friday night's game off the back of those two wins against Sussex and Essex, and last time out, it was Colin Ingram and Chris Cooke who did the damage with the bat, hitting 47 and 38 respectively, with Marnus Labuschagne adding a useful 30 in their total of 182.
Labuschagne got in on the act with the ball too, picking up 3 for 26 from his four overs, whilst van der Gugten also picked up a three wicket haul, going for just 20 from his 4 overs, as Essex were bowled out inside 19 overs for just 156.
Honours were shared between the two sides when they met in 2023, with Glamorgan winning the first meeting, by 29 runs at Merchant Taylors' School, before Middlesex got their revenge down in Cardiff, when inflicting a heavy 49 run defeat on the Welshmen.
At the top of the Glamorgan run-scorers' list, there are some familiar names who boast bags of T20 experience. Colin Ingram leads the way, with an impressive tally of 275 runs to his name, with Kiran Carlson on 217, Sam Northeast on 216, Chris Cooke on 177 and Marnus Labuschagne on 175.
On the bowling front, Glamorgan's attack has been led by the leg-spin of Mason Crane, who has 16 wickets to his name in this year's Blast competition, whilst Dan Douthwaite on 13, and Tim van der Gugten on 11 are the other Glamorgan bowlers to hit the double-figure milestone this term.
We'll be hoping for a repeat of last year's performance in Cardiff and a repeat of the result, as we look to keep our hopes alive.
Middlesex have named the same squad of fourteen who will also travel to Cardiff to face Glamorgan on Friday night:
Members and fans will be able to watch live streams of both games, which will be broadcast by our hosts over the two days, which will be available to watch on the Middlesex website.
Gloucestershire
Middlesex
