Our 2025 season gets underway tomorrow at Lord's, when Lancashire visit the Home of Cricket, for the opening match of our Rothesay County Championship Division Two campaign.
Middlesex First Team Coach, Richard Johnson, has named a squad of 13 for the four-day clash, as we open up our campaign against a county billed by numerous pundits as one of the favourites for promotion to Division One this year, alongside Middlesex.
The squad is without overseas signing Dane Paterson, who will miss out on the opening encounter and remain in South Africa with his parent Club, Western Province, who are still in contention to reach the play-offs of the South African four-day competition. Paterson, along with other Western Province players who've signed to join up with First-Class counties this year, will be able to travel to the UK as soon as Western Province sign the required 'No Objection Certificate', which has not yet been approved.
Much was made in the press of Jimmy Anderson's announcement to play County Championship cricket this season, however an injury prevents England's leading Test wicket-taker from playing any part in the game, however Lancashire will still prove to a tough opponent in the opening encounter.
Middlesex will be led by skipper Toby Roland-Jones, who again Captain's the red-ball side in 2025, and he will lead the seam attack, along with Henry Brookes, Blake Cullen, Noah Cornwell and Ryan Higgins vying for a place in the starting eleven.
The spin department is led by Zafar Gohar, who is set to make his Middlesex debut, and he'll have support from Nathan Fernandes, Sam Robson, Max Holden and Leus du Plooy if there's any turn on offer on an early April wicket.
Jack Davies will wear the gloves, with the batting line-up likely to see Robson opening with Fernandes, with Holden, du Plooy, Higgins, Ben Geddes, who like Gohar would be making his Middlesex debut and Stephen Eskinazi looking to secure a starting place.
Middlesex head into the opening game off the back of two pre-season match, against Hampshire and Surrey, and there were plenty of positives to take from each encounter.
Against Hampshire, Eskinazi, Holden and Davies were all in the runs, whilst Brookes and Higgins picked up three and four wickets respectively, whilst against Surrey, there were runs for Fernandes, Holden, Du Plooy and Geddes.
Play will get underway at 11am tomorrow and we'll be covering the whole game live on our enhanced live stream, available on the Middlesex website or on the Club's YouTube channel, when Kevin Hand will be joined on commentary by TalkSport's Andrew McKenna for all four days.
Middlesex's thirteen-man squad for the clash is as follows:
Middlesex
Lancashire
