Following yesterday’s departure of First Team Coach, Richard Johnson, the Middlesex squad will be led by the coaching staff of Rory Coutts, Ian Salisbury and Tim Murtagh and T20 Captain, Stephen Eskinazi, with two consecutive nights of Vitality Blast matches up next, on Thursday night against Essex at Lord’s, and on Friday night against Surrey at the Oval.
A squad of fourteen has been named for tomorrow night's clash, when we’ll be taking on Essex from 6.15pm at the Home of Cricket.
Henry Brookes has been replaced in the group by young right-arm seamer Naavya Sharma, who is named in his first T20 squad, having made his County Championship debut for the Club earlier this season.
We return to home soil having played back-to-back away games on the road at Taunton and Southampton last Thursday and Friday nights, when a loss to Somerset and a tie with Hampshire Hawks saw us take our points tally to eight from six games played.
Whilst last Thursday’s performance with the bat had so many positives to take from it, as we smashed our joint second highest Blast total ever - 229 for 5, the performance in the field undid all that good work, as Somerset chased their target of 230 down in the final over of their reply for the loss of five wickets to secure the win.
Friday’s match provided a thrilling finish, with both sides leaving the Utilita Bowl disappointed to have not picked up the win, as a rain-affected nail-biter saw the match reduced to just six overs per side. With Hampshire posting 63 for 1 in their shortened innings, a revised DLS target of 76 seemed a massive stretch for Middlesex, however, knocks from Max Holden, Kane Williamson and Ben Geddes got the scores tied to see both sides take two points from the game!
We’ll be hoping for more of the same with the bat against Essex tomorrow, and will be targeting a repeat of the performance at Chelmsford just a week and a half ago, where we bowled and fielded brilliantly to restrict Essex to just 156 for 9 in their 20 overs, before comfortably chasing down the victory target, five down, with fifteen balls to spare to secure an important victory.
Essex remain one of only two sides in the competition who have yet to register a win this season, having lost all five of their opening matches, before getting off the mark with two points thanks to a rained off encounter last time out against Sussex in Hove.
Defeats to Hampshire, Somerset, Glamorgan, Middlesex, and Glamorgan again, have seen Essex make their worst start to a Blast campaign since the competition began in 2003 and at no point in their history have they failed to win any of their opening six encounters.
With the bat they still pose a significant threat however, and they have five batters who’ve amassed more than 100 runs to date from their opening clashes. Dean Elgar leads the way with 160 runs, Michael Pepper comes next with 137, followed by Luke Benkenstein with 115, Jamie Cox with 113, and Paul Walter with 108.
Middlesex have just four batters to have passed 100 runs to this point, led by Ben Geddes with 171, Stephen Eskinazi with 137, Max Holden with 125 and Kane Williamson with 121.
With the ball, Essex’s wickets have been shared around, with Walter leading the way, with 6 wickets to his name, and he’s followed by Shane Snater with five, and both Matt Critchley and Mohammad Aamer with four.
For Middlesex, Tom Helm has led from the front with ball in hand, and he currently has ten wickets to his name, followed by Luke Hollman with eight, and both Zafar Gohar and Noah Cornwell with five apiece.
In 2024 Essex had the better of both encounters in the Blast, winning by four wickets in Chelmsford and then by 16 runs at Lord’s. In the Chelmsford clash, Middlesex posted a competitive 203 for 7 in their 20 overs, with Max Holden top scoring with an unbeaten 85, although a knock of 101 from Michael Pepper saw the hosts over the line, chasing down their target for the loss of six wickets with a little over two overs to spare. At Lord’s, after Essex’s innings had been cut short by heavy rain, having posted 129 for 4 in 12.4 overs, Middlesex’s revised DLS target of 79 from 6 overs proved too much of an ask, as they could only post 63 for 2 in reply!
As we head into game seven of this season’s campaign, with Essex looking to bounce back from the disappointment of their uncharacteristically poor start to this year’s campaign, and Middlesex desperately needing a win to stay in the hunt, it promises to be an intriguing game, which neither side can really afford to lose.
Middlesex have named the following fourteen-man squad for tomorrow’s clash at Lord’s:
Middlesex Men
Essex Men
