After securing a fifth victory in the group stages of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup yesterday, when beating Northamptonshire Steelback convincingly up at Wantage Road, Middlesex head to the Emirates Old Trafford in Manchester tomorrow to take on Lancashire, with high hopes of securing a place in the knockout stages of the competition.
We have named a squad of 14 for the encounter, with both Zafar Gohar and Ryan Higgins disappointingly returning to their respective Hundred franchises and unavailable for tomorrow's encounter, having both played a key part in yesterday's victory up in Northampton.
Victory for Middlesex yesterday ensured the side kept pace with all the other sides vying for one of the knockout places, and getting the job done with over 17 overs of the run chase to spare helped the net run rate out significantly, although we'll need another strong performance and convincing win tomorrow against the Red Rose to give ourselves every chance.
Yorkshire continued their fine form with another win yesterday against Sussex to move to 24 points in the table and virtually guarantee that they will finish as group winners, given their far superior run rate. In joint second place, all on 20 points from five wins, sit Somerset, Warwickshire and Middlesex, with all three sides picking up crucial wins yesterday to keep their hopes of qualification alive.
Against Kent Spitfires, Somerset chased down a total of 270 for the loss of 6 wickets to bag their win, whilst Warwickshire held their nerve to chase down Durham's big total of 300, securing a crucial four wicket win themselves.
After yesterday's results and ahead of tomorrow's final group stage games, the Group B table stands as follows:
| TEAM | PLAYED | WON | LOST | TIED | NRR | PTS |
| Yorkshire | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1.962 | 24 |
| Somerset | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0.452 | 20 |
| Warwickshire | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0.289 | 20 |
| Middlesex | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0.158 | 20 |
| Sussex | 7 | 3 | 4 | 0 | -0.417 | 12 |
| Durham | 8 | 3 | 5 | 0 | -0.753 | 12 |
| Kent | 7 | 2 | 5 | 0 | -0.469 | 8 |
| Lancashire | 7 | 1 | 5 | 0 | -0.386 | 6 |
| Northamptonshire | 7 | 1 | 5 | 0 | -0.907 | 6 |
With Middlesex heading to eighth placed Lancashire at Old Trafford, Yorkshire away to Kent in Canterbury, Somerset hosting bottom side Northamptonshire in Taunton, and Warwickshire hosting fifth placed Sussex at Edgbaston, it promises to be a nail-biting finish to the group stages. With only the top three sides qualifying for the knockouts, all eyes will be firmly set on these fixtures around the country tomorrow to see how things pan out.
Cruelly, all three of the sides currently tied together in joint second spot on 20 points could win tomorrow, meaning that the side who finishes fourth in the table could find themselves eliminated, despite having won six of their eight group stage matches - which is unprecedented in the history of the competition!
We head to Lancashire with our sights firmly set on getting the job done ourselves, and hoping results elsewhere fall favourably for us, and we head there high in confidence having wrapped up back-to-back wins in the competition when defeating Northamptonshire yesterday.
The manner of the victory was really impressive, as with both ball initially, and then with bat, we outplayed the Steelbacks convincingly all afternoon and thoroughly deserved the win.
With the ball, Zafar Gohar (4 for 39) and Ryan Higgins (3 for 43) were exceptional, as we rolled Northants for just 189 inside 39 overs, before dominating with the bat, knocking off the runs inside 33 overs, with 67 off 70 balls from Sam Robson, 51 off 52 from Ben Geddes, and 48 off 34 from Ryan Higgins seeing us to a four wicket victory.
We'll need to be bang on it again in all disciplines tomorrow and back up yesterday's performance with another against Lancashire if we are to give ourselves any chance of progressing.
The batting match-ups between the two sides ahead of tomorrow's clash sees Middlesex filling the top two spots, with Sam Robson leading the way with 423 runs at an average of 70.50 and Ben Geddes next in line with 337 at 56.16. They are followed by the Lancashire trio of Marcus Harris (273 at 45.50), Michael Jones (254 at 42.33) and George Bell (251 at 41.83).
With the ball, it's Middlesex's Henry Brookes leading the way, with 11 wickets to his name, followed by Lancashire's Arav Shetty with 9, followed by Middlesex's Luke Hollman and Lancashire pair George Balderson and Charlie Barnard, who all have 6 wickets to their name.
The last time the two sides met in the List-A format of the game was last season, when at Old Trafford, Middlesex ran out winners by five wickets in a DLS rain affected encounter. Lancashire's innings was cut short by two overs, reduced to 48, in which they had a knock off 88 from Rocky Flintoff to thank for them posting a total of 233 for 9. Henry Brookes was the standout bowler for Middlesex on the day, taking career-best List-A figures of 4 for 43 from his 10 overs. In reply, 98 from Joe Cracknell and an unbeaten 87 from Sam Robson did the majority of the heavy lifting for Middlesex, as they chased the target down with eight balls of the chase to spare.
What Middlesex would do for a repeat of that result tomorrow, combined with the cricketing gods looking down on us favourably, as we keep our fingers crossed that results elsewhere fall into place.
Whatever happens tomorrow up at Old Trafford and around the country at the other crucial matches being played, it promises to be a nail-biting, nerve-jangling Tuesday afternoon for members and supporters of all the Club's involved.
Middlesex have named the following 14-man squad for tomorrow's clash:
Lancashire Men
Middlesex Men
