Middlesex Interim Men’s First Team Coach, Dane Vilas, has named a squad of fourteen to face Derbyshire at Lord’s this week, as we return to four-day red-ball action, for the first of three back-to-back Rothesay County Championship matches that will finish the 2025 domestic season.
The Middlesex squad will be missing two key personnel in the batting ranks for this one, with New Zealand overseas star Kane Williamson, and top-order batter Max Holden both not fit for selection.
The squad is boosted however with the addition of experienced paceman Olly Stone, who this morning the Club announced would be joining Middlesex for the next two weeks on a short-term loan from Nottinghamshire.
Middlesex head back into red-ball action off the back of an encouraging Metro Bank One-Day Cup campaign, where we won six of our eight group matches to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition, before ultimately losing out to Hampshire in the quarter-final stages. With plenty of players in the squad batting and bowling themselves into good form throughout the four weeks of the fifty-over competition, they'll be looking to transfer that form into the longer format of the game over the last month of the season.
With just three games of the season remaining, we currently sit in fourth place in the table, only three points behind this week's opponents, Derbyshire, with Glamorgan a further 24 points clear of them. Realistically, we'll need to target at least two wins and one high points scoring draw to give us a chance of finishing inside the top two, with hopes of Glamorgan also slipping up in the run-in.
That has to start with us focussing on securing victory over Derbyshire at Lord's this week, and a win this week would see us overhaul the East Midlanders and move into third place in the table, ahead of what would be two massive matches to close the season out, when we'll be travelling to Lancashire in round thirteen before returning home for our final clash of the season against Gloucestershire in the last week of September.
The Rothesay County Championship Division Two table currently stands as follows:
| Position | Team | Played | Won | Lost | Drawn | Bat Bonus | Bowl Bonus | Points |
| 1 | Leicestershire | 11 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 35 | 30 | 193 |
| 2 | Glamorgan | 11 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 26 | 28 | 165 |
| 3 | Derbyshire | 11 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 26 | 27 | 141 |
| 4 | Middlesex | 11 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 21 | 29 | 138 |
| 5 | Gloucestershire | 11 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 30 | 29 | 131 |
| 6 | Lancashire | 11 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 19 | 28 | 127 |
| 7 | Northamptonshire | 11 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 23 | 28 | 123 |
| 8 | Kent | 11 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 16 | 25 | 97 |
This week's opponents Derbyshire have become something of the draw specialists in the Division, with seven of their 11 matches resulting in the points being shared. They had an unbeaten start to the season, spanning nine matches, which saw them win two and draw seven of their opening matches, before they were undone by Lancashire two games ago, losing by 261 runs in Chesterfield, and then losing again to Leicestershire last time out by 189 runs in Derby.
The last time the two sides met was earlier this season up at Derby, when the honours ended even with a drawn result. Batting first, former Middlesex all-rounder Martin Andersson top scored with 107 in the Derbyshire total of 472, before Middlesex had half centuries from Leus du Plooy, Ben Geddes and Jack Davies to thank for a total of 315 in reply, although with Derbyshire enforcing the follow on, we needed 94 from Max Holden, 61 from Stephen Eskinazi, 56 from Ryan Higgins and an unbeaten 52 from Zafar Gohar to bat through the final day to secure the draw, finishing on 373 for 7.
Thus far this season, Caleb Jewell (940 runs at 49.47) and Wayne Madsen (928 runs at 54.58) have led the batting form for Derbyshire, with Harry Came (732 runs at 38.52) and Martin Andersson (621 runs at 47.76) following them.
With the ball, Luis Reece has been their standout performer, with 37 wickets to his name, with the Zak Chappell (27), Blair Tickner (24) and Jack Morley (22) next in line.
This week promises to be a huge game, which both sides will be targeting a win from, so we should be in for a real treat over the coming four days at Lord's.
Middlesex's fourteen-man squad for the match is as follows:
Middlesex Men
Derbyshire Men
