Middlesex head into the third Rothesay County Championship clash of the season tomorrow against Glamorgan at Lord’s, who we take on over the four days of the long Easter weekend.
After an impressive performance against Lancashire in what was a gripping opening match of the season against Lancashire two weeks ago, the side were undone last week by Kent down in Canterbury, as the hosts battled back strongly to secure victory on the third day of the game.
Middlesex First Team Coach, Richard Johnson, has named a squad of 13 for this week’s clash with Glamorgan, with the group boosted by the addition of South African seamer Dane Paterson, who has now arrived at the Club.
Paterson was originally scheduled to join ahead of the opening clash of the season, however with him initially not being released by his parent Club and then having a personal matter to deal with in South Africa, he flew to the UK earlier this week and has now teamed up with Middlesex and is named in the squad to face Glamorgan.
He replaces Noah Cornwell in the squad that was named for the Kent clash, and Paterson joins a five-strong seam attack along with skipper Toby Roland-Jones, Henry Brookes, Blake Cullen and Ryan Higgins.
The batting unit is still without Sam Robson, who sat out of last week’s game due to the imminent arrival of his first-born child. That situation remains unchanged, so Robson again misses out on the action this week against Glamorgan.
Stephen Eskinazi, who stepped in as Robson’s opening berth replacement last week, acquitted himself well down in Canterbury, notching a half-century in Middlesex’s second innings, so he is again named to open with Nathan Fernandes, looking to build on the good form he’s shown early this year, having also hit a century in the pre-season warm-up clash against Hampshire.
Ben Geddes has begun his Middlesex career well, hitting half-centuries in both of his two appearances to date, and he’s named alongside Eskinazi, Fernandes, Max Holden, Leus du Plooy and Ryan Higgins in Middlesex’s top and middle-order, along with wicketkeeper batsman Jack Davies, who batted impressively against Kent in difficult conditions, notching an unbeaten 47 in our first innings.
Both sides head into this one looking to secure the first wins of their campaign, both win one draw and one loss to their names.
Middlesex can take confidence from the fact that they were unlucky not to have beaten Lancashire – just failing to close out the Lancashire second innings to bag the win, whilst at Kent they were on the wrong end of the toss, which found the hosts batting in the fourth innings on a deck that had flattened out beyond belief!
Glamorgan on the other hand were badly beaten by Leicestershire in their opening encounter, losing by ten wickets down in Cardiff, whilst against Gloucestershire last week they secured a hard fought draw in Bristol.
Both counties will be looking to get their campaigns up and running this weekend, and if the deck is anything like as good as the wicket prepared for the Lancashire game, then we should well be in for an exciting game ahead.
Middlesex have named the following squad of 13 for this week’s encounter:
You can watch all the action on Middlesex’s live stream of the match, which will get underway at 10.30am each day – available to watch on the Club’s website in the Match Centre, or direct on the Club’s YouTube channel.
Middlesex
Glamorgan
