Middlesex have named a squad of fifteen to head up to Birmingham this week to take on Warwickshire at Edgbaston in our latest LV= Insurance County Championship clash of the season.
The squad of fifteen sees both Joe Cracknell and Blake Cullen coming into the group, both named in a County Championship squad for the first time this season, whilst Pieter Malan misses out on this week's trip to Edgbaston.
Cracknell comes in to the playing squad off the back of a brilliant knock of 158 scored against Kent Seconds last week at Teddington, where Cullen bowled with good pace and picked up five wickets in the game on his return to full fitness.
Middlesex head to Birmingham having lost out to London rivals Surrey in our latest encounter at Lord's, where Surrey ran out winners by eight wickets. We took two points from the game, both bowling points, which matched the points haul of Kent, who sit one place above us, who suffered defeat at the hands of Essex by seven wickets.
The gap between us and Kent sits at just eleven points, with Nottinghamshire one place above them and sixteen points ahead, with five games remaining in our Championship campaign, compared with just four games for the two sides above us, who have both played a game more.
With games running out, every game becomes crucial, and we'll almost certainly need to secure victory in one of our remaining games to overhaul Kent and close the gap on Nottinghamshire above them. This week's trip to Edgbaston provides us with the first of those five opportunities!
Warwickshire could only draw with Lancashire last week, in a game that they took eight points from, which solidified their fourth placed position in the Division One table, in amongst a tightly packed group of sides chasing Surrey and Essex at the top.
Former Durham man, Chris Rushworth, now at the age of 37 continues to work his magic with the ball, and is the main threat for Middlesex this week. The right arm seam veteran has 42 wickets to his name this year and currently sits as the third highest wicket-taker in the county. Not far behind him, on 33 wickets, is Oliver Hannon-Dalby, so it's likely that a seam-friendly pitch will be served up for this week's encounter, which could well play into Middlesex's hands if winning the toss.
For Middlesex, the wickets have been more shared around throughout the seam unit, with five seamers having taken more than twenty wickets so far this term. Ryan Higgins leads the way with 25, closely followed by Ethan Bamber with 24, Tim Murtagh with 22, Toby Roland-Jones with 21 and Tom Helm with 20 - and all five are named in this week's squad, along with the extra pace that Cullen and Martin Andersson can offer.
Once again it was a shortage of first innings runs that put Middlesex on the back foot against Surrey at Lord's last week, which proved telling, as the visitors took an early hold on proceedings with a big first innings lead. Its been the story of Middlesex's season to date, and is something that the side will need to rectify soon if they are to get themselves into commanding positions early in matches to then be well placed to control the game.
It's another crucial one this week, and we have named the following fifteen-man squad for the encounter at Edgbaston:
Warwickshire
Middlesex
