Middlesex First-Team Coach Richard Johnson has named an unchanged squad of fourteen for this week's crucial, must-win clash in Derby, where we take on Derbyshire in our penultimate Vitality County Championship clash of the season.
Last week's loss to Gloucestershire at Lord's, when combined with Sussex's and Yorkshire's victories over Glamorgan and Leicestershire respectively, cost us dearly and put a sizeable dent in our hopes for promotion, as we dropped out of the top two in the Second Division table for the first time this season, meaning that we'll not only need to beat Derbyshire convincingly this week up in Derby, but we'll also need to hope that both or either of our promotion rivals slip up themselves.
Sussex's victory, by an innings and 87 runs took them further ahead at the top of the table, and their lead now stands at 21 points and are firm favourites for promotion. Yorkshire leapfrogged us into second place, and they now lead Middlesex by 15 points, after they wrapped up a win inside three days by an innings and 72 runs at Grace Road.
Leicestershire trail us in fourth place, 22 points adrift, realistically leaving promotion available to just the three sides at the top of the table.
Last week's encounter against Gloucestershire at Lord's was largely decided by a calamitous one hour with the bat, in the third innings, when Middlesex fell from 122 for 2 in our second innings, to 165 all out, leaving Gloucestershire a more than gettable total of 234 for victory on day four.
Gloucestershire were made to work hard for their runs, although with time on their hands and never really under pressure with the required run rate, they were able to go about their chase in a measured and calm manner. Three wickets in the morning session for the Middlesex attack kept the game alive, as did three further wickets in the afternoon session, however six down, Gloucestershire reached their target with a session to spare, leaving us ruing that one hour on day three that could deny us promotion.
Nothing short of putting all that behind us and getting back to winning ways this week will do, when we take on a Derbyshire side who sit at the bottom of the table with just one win in the Championship all season.
With Yorkshire facing a tricky away trip to Glamorgan and Sussex on the road in Bristol against Gloucestershire, there's by no means any guarantees that either of our promotion rivals will secure victories this week, which gives us every opportunity to seize our opportunity in Derby and make a huge stride towards closing the gap on both sides.
Derbyshire's main threat with the bat comes from the evergreen Wayne Madsen, who has been as consistent as ever this term. The 40-year-old is this week's opponents' leading run-scorer this term with 848 runs at an average of 47.11, however he's had very little support from others around him, with only two other Derbyshire batters passing 500 runs to this point of the campaign. They are Brooke Guest (589 at 31.00) and Luis Reece (568 at 29.89), who are trailed by Aneurin Donald with 496 at 27.55.
Compare that to Middlesex's batters and the difference is stark. Ryan Higgins leads the way, on 1,089 runs at 77.78, Leus du Plooy on 938 runs at 55.17, Max Holden on 889 runs at 49.38, Sam Robson on 759 at 58.38 and Mark Stoneman on 570 runs at 30.00.
With the ball it's a similar story, with only two Derbyshire bowlers taking more than twenty wickets this season, compared to five in the Middlesex bowling ranks.
Zac Chappell (28) and Alex Thompson (22) lead the way for Derbyshire, with Reece (16), Daryn Dupavillon (15) and Jack Morley (13), whilst for Middlesex, skipper Toby Roland-Jones leads the field on 42, with Higgins (29), Ethan Bamber (26), Henry Brookes (22) and Tom Helm (21) offering good support from the seam unit, whilst Luke Hollman has spun his way to 15 wickets.
On paper and based on the statistics we've seen so far this term, Middlesex enter this one as firm favourites, however we'll need to be at our best in all disciplines to secure the win we need and hopefully get some favours from around the country to bring ourselves right back into the promotion race, with the current league table looking as follows:
| TEAM | P | W | T | L | D | A | BAT | BOWL | ADJ | PTS |
| SUSSEX | 12 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 33 | 34 | -3 | 200 |
| YORKSHIRE | 12 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 33 | 34 | 0 | 179 |
| MIDDLESEX | 12 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 24 | 28 | 0 | 164 |
| LEICESTERSHIRE | 12 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 27 | 27 | 0 | 142 |
| GLOUCESTERSHIRE | 12 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 27 | 25 | -10 | 138 |
| NORTHAMPTONSHIRE | 12 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 19 | 31 | 0 | 130 |
| GLAMORGAN | 12 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 19 | 27 | 0 | 126 |
| DERBYSHIRE | 12 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 19 | 25 | -1 | 107 |
At Lord's earlier this season in the reverse fixture, Middlesex ran out comprehensive winners, securing the victory by 194 runs, and we'll be hoping for exactly the same this week.
Half centuries from du Plooy (57) and Roland-Jones (52) and a brilliant 163 from Ryan Higgins set up a big first innings total of 433, before Roland-Jones (5 for 81) and Higgins (3 for 60) saw Derbyshire dismissed for 339 trailing at the halfway stage by 94.
Runs from du Plooy (59) and Higgins (67) again, plus Sam Robson's 67 saw us post 302 in our second dig, leaving Derbyshire an unlikely target of 397 for victory in the fourth innings.
Three wickets apiece from Brookes (3 for 29) and Bamber (3 for 28) plus 2 for 31 from Hollman saw Derbyshire rolled for 202 to secure our third win of the campaign.
The next four days will be absolutely crucial in the context of our season overall, and we'll be hoping to come away from Derbyshire with our fifth win of the season having taken a big step towards promotion.
Our fourteen-man squad for this week’s game up in Derby is as follows:
You can watch all four days of the game in Derby via the hosts' live stream of the game, which will be available to watch on the Middlesex website.
Here's to win number five for Middlesex and upsets for both Sussex and Yorkshire.
Derbyshire
Middlesex
