Middlesex Men's Interim First Team Coach, Dane Vilas, has named a squad of fourteen for our return to Vitality Blast action, when we head to Bristol tomorrow, for a 4pm start, as we take on Gloucestershire in the first of six consecutive T20 encounters that will complete this season's South Group campaign.
We return to the shortest format of the game after a two week break, in which we've played two rounds of County Championship matches, with us losing out to Northamptonshire a fortnight ago, before bouncing back with a comprehensive and chastening victory over previously unbeaten table-topping Leicestershire this week.
Our Blast campaign remains on course, having beaten Essex at Lord's in our last home encounter, before coming out on the wrong end of the London derby last time out, when Surrey secured victory with an impressive performance at the Oval.
After eight games, we currently sit in joint seventh place in the South Group table, eight points behind Glamorgan, who reside in the final knockout place in fourth spot. With six games remaining, three to play away and three at home, with a game in hand on Glamorgan in fourth, and with four points up for grabs for each victory, we remain very much in contention for qualification for the knockout stages of the competition.
We'll need to string a run of positive results together and perform as well as we did against Essex at Lord's a fortnight or more ago if we're to get there, however with two matches out of the next three games being against tomorrow's opponents Gloucestershire, who sit level with us in the table on 12 points, there's every chance of us putting some points on the board over the coming few days if we can perform at our best and to our capabilities.
And perform at our best we'll need to, as Gloucestershire come into this clash as one of the form sides, having secured back-to-back-to-back wins in the competition in their last three games, against Kent, Hampshire and most recently against Essex on Friday night, which has seen them overturn a really poor start to their campaign in which they lost their opening five matches.
Vilas has a strong batting line-up at his disposal, with skipper Stephen Eskinazi right at the heart of it at the top of the order. He's got Kane Williamson, Max Holden, Leus du Plooy, Ben Geddes, Ryan Higgins, Josh De Caires, and Joe Cracknell for company in that top and middle order, so there's plenty of firepower available, with other big hitters in Luke Hollman and Zafar Gohar to also call upon.
With the ball there's plenty of variety, with the ever reliable Tom Helm leading the way in the pace ranks, supported by the left arm pace of Josh Little who returns from injury, plus Higgins and the young seam pair of Naavya Sharma and Noah Cornwell, who will be full of confidence having terrorised Leicestershire's batters in our last four-day outing earlier this week! Spin options come from Gohar, Hollman and De Caires, giving Vilas any number of routes he could go with his final selection for this one.
When matching the two sides up, the batting statistics are remarkably well-matched, with Middlesex's Williamson just shading the run scoring. His 200 runs has him just ahead of Jack Taylor on 199, and they're closely followed by Darcy Short with 191, Oliver Price with 189, Geddes with 183 runs, Holden with 178 runs, Eskinazi with 175 runs and Miles Hammond with 171.
With the ball, it's Middlesex who have the edge, as Tom Helm leads the wicket taking across both sides, with 15 victims to his name already this term, which sees him sat as the joint fifth highest wicket-taker across both Divisions. It's Gloucestershire's experienced seamer David Payne who comes next, with 12 wickets, whilst Middlesex duo Hollman (nine wickets) and Cornwell (eight wickets) follow him, with Gohar and the hosts' trio of Ajeet Dale, Matt Taylor, and Josh Shaw all tied together with seven apiece.
The last time the two sides met in the Blast in Bristol it was Middlesex who came out on top, winning the tie by 29 runs. Batting first, Middlesex had half-centuries from Jack Davies (53) and Martin Andersson (52), and an unbeaten 31* from De Caires to thank for their total of 181 for 8 in their 20 overs. In reply, the wickets were shared around among the Middlesex bowlers, with Hollman the best of the bunch, as his 3 for 37 restricted Gloucestershire to 152 in their reply, with Gloucestershire dismissed in the final over of their run chase. Middlesex will be hoping for a repeat of this tomorrow!
Vilas will be looking for more of the same energy and commitment from his side that he saw earlier this week at the Uptonsteel County Ground, where they were by far the dominant force in the match, and a repeat of that intensity and fight from his players will give Middlesex every chance of adding another four points to their tally tomorrow afternoon.
It's a game that Middlesex will be targeting a win from to start to build momentum into the back end of the group stages, and a run of positive results from here on in will give the side every chance of progressing in the competition.
Middlesex's fourteen-man squad for tomorrow's encounter is as follows:
You'll be able to watch a live stream of the game, broadcast by our hosts tomorrow, which will be available to watch on the Middlesex website in the Match Centre.
Here's to a strong showing from Middlesex tomorrow to kickstart a strong end to the group stages!
Gloucestershire Men
Middlesex Men
