Middlesex’s 2019 Specsavers County Championship campaign gets up and running tomorrow with an opening day visit to Wantage Road to take on a Northamptonshire side who finished second bottom of the pile in 2018.
Last season’s encounters between the two sides saw Middlesex emerge triumphant in both, with the Seaxes winning convincingly by 160 runs at Lord’s in April and by 31 runs at Wantage Road in August despite being forced to follow on.
After a successful build up to the season, spent largely on the grass nets at Merchant Taylors’ School, Stuart Law will be keen for a repeat of those victories to get his new tenure at Middlesex off to a confidence and morale boosting start. Pre-season friendly encounters with Hampshire and Somerset provided much needed time in the middle for the batters and the opportunity for the bowling unit to find their rhythm, and a good run out against the students of Oxford University at Merchant Taylors’ last week will have given him plenty of optimism ahead of the new Championship campaign.
With the club energised by the new leadership duo of Law and his Assistant Nic Pothas, the Middlesex squad are eager to get going themselves, and buoyed by the return to fitness of pace trio Toby Roland-Jones, Steven Finn and Tom Helm, Law has plenty of options available to him on the selection front.
He has named the following fourteen man squad for the clash...
Dawid Malan (Captain)
Stephen Eskinazi
Nick Gubbins
Steven Finn
James Harris
Tom Helm
Max Holden
Eoin Morgan
Tim Murtagh
Sam Robson
Toby Roland-Jones
John Simpson (wicket-keeper)
Nathan Sowter
Paul Stirling
Northamptonshire
Middlesex
