After suffering another agonisingly narrow defeat yesterday against Hampshire Hawks in Northwood, Middlesex head into Vitality Blast action again tomorrow evening, when we return to Merchant Taylors' School, this time to take on Gloucestershire, in what is now a must win encounter for Middlesex, starting at 5pm.
Last night's defeat once again showed just how cruel T20 cricket can be as a format, as for large parts of the encounter Middlesex were more than in the contest, playing good cricket, going head to head with Hampshire, and could, and probably should have secured the points for the win, only to once again fall agonisingly short, coming out on the wrong side of the fine margins of T20 cricket.
Most encouragingly, we're competing, and are running some of the strongest sides in the group close, and you can't help feeling that with the quality of some of the cricket we're playing, it's only a matter of time before we start to win those little battles in the game that ultimately prove crucial in defining the result.
Yesterday's defeat, really simplifies the equation for Middlesex, knowing that nothing less than four victories from our remaining four South Group matches will be enough to even give us a chance of qualifying! Even then, four wins, and the resultant sixteen points we'd receive, would take us to 28 points, which would still require other results to go our way, with plenty of fixtures still to play across the group.
We have named a squad of fourteen for tomorrow's clash, with one addition to the group named to face Hampshire last night, as Josh De Caires comes back into the squad, having hit a century and unbeaten 76* in the Second Eleven's victory over Kent this week at Radlett.
It was only a few days ago that we last faced tomorrow's opponents, Gloucestershire, down in Bristol, when the hosts ran out winners by 9 runs in a closely fought game. It was another occasion when we played enough good cricket to consider ourselves unlucky to have not got over the line, but with similarities to last night's batting performance, we let a fantastic start to our innings slip through our fingers, as regular wickets fell in the middle overs to stifle us building on that start, ultimately seeing us fall 20 or so runs short of where we should have been.
Gloucestershire come to Northwood still very much in contention themselves. Whilst only one place above us in the table, their tally of sixteen points puts them in the hunt, and they have a game in hand on most of the sides above them, and two games in hand on Kent and Hampshire, so they'll be looking to back up Sunday's win with another win tomorrow, having suffered defeat in their last outing to Surrey.
They've been heavily reliant on runs from their overseas Australian signing, Darcy Short, who has been in imperious form in the Blast this term. His 344 runs put him a long way ahead of Gloucestershire's other batters, with Miles Hammond (233 runs), Jack Taylor (223 runs), Oliver Price (200) and Cameron Bancroft (187 runs) trailing in his wake! Short's run tally currently sees him sat as the seventh highest run scorer in both groups of the competition.
With the ball, the seam duo of David Payne and Josh Shaw have been doing most of the heavy lifting for the visitors, with Payne on 15 wickets and Shaw on 14. They're trailed by both Ajeet Dale and Matt Taylor of nine apiece, with Tom Smith, Ben Charlesworth and Price each with four wickets.
With Middlesex needing a victory and nothing less tomorrow, and with Gloucestershire looking to make the most of their games in hand by picking up points that would see them climb to the business end of the table, tomorrow's match promises to be another thrilling contest, and if it's anything like as closely fought as yesterday's game at Merchant Taylors', spectators will be in for a real treat.
The Middlesex fourteen-man squad for tomorrow's clash is as follows:
If you're not heading to Merchant Taylors' School tomorrow evening to watch the action in person, make sure you tune into our live stream of the game, which will be available to watch on the Club's website in the Match Centre, or direct on the Club's YouTube channel.
Here's to a Middlesex win tomorrow to keep the hopes alive!
Middlesex Men
Gloucestershire Men
