Middlesex's Interim First Team Coach, Dane Vilas, has named a squad of 14 for the final match of the 2025 season, when we take on Gloucestershire at Lord's this week in the Rothesay County Championship from tomorrow.
Whilst we had high hopes that we would be heading into the final week of the season with our promotion hopes still intact, rain interrupted matches against both Derbyshire at Lord's and Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford over the last two weeks have well and truly put paid to that, with both matches disappointingly ending in draws.
Those results, combined with the same outcome from Glamorgan's last two games, sees the Welshmen heading into Division One next season, although quite what the structure of the four-day game looks like still staggeringly remains uncertain.
All Middlesex can do is target a strong finish to the season this week against Gloucestershire, especially after this week's opponents edged ahead of us in the Division Two standings last week, when securing a seven wicket win against Northamptonshire, to leapfrog us into fourth spot.
The Division Two table currently stands as follows:
| Position | Team | Played | Won | Lost | Drawn | Bat Bonus | Bowl Bonus | Points |
| 1 (C) | Leicestershire | 13 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 42 | 32 | 218 |
| 2 (P) | Glamorgan | 13 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 31 | 31 | 189 |
| 3 | Derbyshire | 13 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 27 | 33 | 164 |
| 4 | Gloucestershire | 13 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 34 | 35 | 163 |
| 5 | Middlesex | 13 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 22 | 33 | 159 |
| 6 | Lancashire | 13 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 23 | 34 | 153 |
| 7 | Northamptonshire | 13 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 27 | 33 | 140 |
| 8 | Kent | 13 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 17 | 30 | 113 |
The 14-man squad this week named by Vilas is the same 13 that were named to face Lancashire last week, with the addition of young seamer Jamie Feldman, who is named in a County Championship squad for just the second time since signing rookie contract terms with the Club in July, having also been named in the squad that took on Northamptonshire at Merchant Taylors' School later that month.
He didn't play on that occasion, however if he plays this time round he will of course be making his first-class debut, following in the footsteps of fellow youngsters and Middlesex Academy graduates, Seb Morgan and Naavya Sharma, who have featured in the County Championship for Middlesex already this season.
Both Kane Williamson and Max Holden remain absent, with both players still not fit to play, whilst seamer Olly Stone has returned to his parent Club Nottinghamshire after a short loan spell with Middlesex.
Gloucestershire come into this week's game as one of only two sides to have secured a positive result last week, with only them and Nottinghamshire able to secure victories, as each of the other seven matches across both divisions were badly affected by heavy winds and rain, seeing them all end as drawn affairs.
Last week Gloucestershire had Matt Taylor and Graeme van Buuren to thank for dismissing Northamptonshire for just 206 in their first innings, as both picked up three wicket hauls in the innings, before 63 from Jack Taylor and 44 from van Buuren helped Gloucestershire to a total of 241 in reply and a 35 run first innings lead.
Northamptonshire's second innings yielded even less, as four wickets for Ajeet Singh Dane and three for Ben Charlesworth saw them rolled for 192, leaving Gloucestershire a target of just 158 for victory. They got there in just 24 overs thanks to 54 from Ollie Price and an unbeaten 38 from Miles Hammond to secure a seven wicket victory.
The last time we faced Gloucestershire was back at the end of July, when rain again played its part in the game ending a draw. Batting first, a century for Kane Williamson (158) and half centuries for Josh De Caires (58) and Luke Hollman (60*) helped Middlesex post 445 inside the required 110 overs to qualify for bonus points, although those overs had taken almost two days to get through because of rain and bad light.
Gloucestershire's reply saw them hit 50 for 1 in the dying overs of day two before bad light forced the players off the field, before persistent rain killed any play on day three, and with it any hopes of a result in the game. Day four became something of a meaningless procession, with Gloucestershire reaching 404 for 9 when the captains shook hands and ended things.
James Bracey has led the way for the visitors run scoring this season, with 950 runs to his name at an average of 52.77, and he is followed by Miles Hammond (888 at 40.36), Ben Charlesworth (842 at 40.09), Ollie Price (817 at 37.13) and Cameron Bancroft (796 at 46.82).
With the ball Ajeet Singh Dale is the visitors leading wicket taker, with 35, with Zaman Akhter (24), Graeme van Buuren (23) and Tom Price (19) following on.
We look forward to members and spectators joining us at Lord's this week when hopefully Middlesex can finish the season off with another win.
The Middlesex 14-man squad for this week's clash against Gloucestershire is as follows:
Middlesex Men
Gloucestershire Men
