Middlesex First Team Coach Richard Johnson has named a squad of twelve to face Worcestershire at Merchant Taylors' School this week as we return to four-day First-Class action in the LV= Insurance County Championship.
The headline news is that South African overseas batter Pieter Malan is still awaiting his visa to travel to the UK to join up with his new side for the remainder of the Championship campaign and for the forthcoming Royal London Cup campaign.
In what has been an extremely frustrating period for the Club, where countless conversations have been had with representatives from the office responsible for issuing visas and with the Club's local MP, as of Saturday, when Malan was booked onto a flight to travel to London, he was still not in possession of a visa that allowed him entrance to the UK.
Assurances have been given that Malan will be in receipt of his visa early this week, so his flight has been rescheduled and he will be travelling to London from South Africa within the next few days, making him available for the last five matches of Middlesex's County Championship run in, starting with the visit of Sussex to Lord's next week, and for the entirety of the Royal London Cup campaign.
With Stephen Eskinazi's call-up to represent the England Lions this week against South Africa, Middlesex are a batter light this week, making the Malan visa situation even more infuriating.
Tim Murtagh will captain the side, who return to Merchant Taylors' School having secured a hard-fought and crucially important draw in their last outing against table topping Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, a draw that saw Middlesex earn 14 points from the game and return to London still sat in second place in the table, ready to push hard for promotion over the remaining six matches in the campaign.
Worcestershire travel to Northwood having lost their last encounter in the Championship, in a game they could and probably should have won. Against Glamorgan, Worcestershire took early control of the match, posting 271 in their first innings before then dismissing Glamorgan for just 139. They built on their lead of 132 by adding 199 in their second innings, leaving Glamorgan an unlikely target of 332 for victory. It was here that the momentum shifted however, as with time on their side, a well constructed and patient century from Colin Ingram and an unbeaten 99 from Billy Root took the Welshmen to the finish line to secure a three wicket win on the fourth and final day, leaving Worcestershire ruing a huge missed opportunity.
And what a missed opportunity it was - victory in that game would have seen Worcestershire coming to Northwood in third place in the table, just 11 points behind Middlesex, however defeat leaves them sat in fifth place, 27 points adrift of Middlesex in second.
In a Second Division where only 38 point separates the top five sides, every game has a huge amount riding on it, and a win for Middlesex this week would see them open up a significant gap on some of the sides below them, and take a giant leap towards securing their ambitions of finishing inside the top two to get promoted back into the top flight of the Championship structure.
The last time the two sides met was last summer at Lord's, where Middlesex triumphed by a margin of 101 runs, repeating the result from their previous meeting in 2019, where Middlesex again ran out winners, this time by 127 runs.
Middlesex have certainly had the better of recent encounters between the two sides, with Worcestershire last winning on Middlesex's home turf back in 2010, when they ran out winners by 111 runs at Lord's. Richard Johnson's side will be hoping that this recent run of successful home results against Worcestershire can continue over the coming four days at Merchant Taylors' School, on a ground that has seen been good to them and where they have never lost a first-class encounter.
For this week's return to Championship action, Middlesex have named the following twelve-man squad:
Middlesex
Worcestershire
