Middlesex CCC

Pleased to see the more experienced Nick Gubbins back in the squad (Dan Lincoln misses out)

Eoin Morgan expected to be fit, but nice to have more experienced back up if needed.

[www.middlesexccc.com]

Malan (c), Barber, Eskinazi, Finn, Gubbins, Helm, Holden, Morgan, Roland-Jones, Scott, Simpson(wk), Sowter, Stirling, Ur Rahman.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 14/08/2019 16:17 by BarmierKev.

I was feeling positive about Middlesex’s Twenty20 campaign after we beat Surrey at Lord’s on Thursday. However, after we lost to Sussex at Hove last night, one of my first thoughts is that I hope we don’t lose tomorrow, otherwise our tally of defeats would be just one less than our tally of wins, and we would fall below Gloucestershire and - if they beat Kent tonight at Taunton - Somerset. If we can win this match, then that would put last night’s result to bed, and would help us either overtake Kent or extend our advantage over Somerset depending on tonight’s result at Taunton.

To have batsmen of the quality of Dawid Malan, Paul Stirling, Eoin Morgan and AB de Villiers available for our campaign must make our batting line-up amongst the strongest in this season’s competition. The only problem is that in our eight matches so far, Stirlo and de Villiers have played just five matches each, Morgan has played just three matches, de Villiers is currently not available, and Stirlo and Morgan may miss the business end of our campaign due to the Euro T20 Slam. Therefore, I really hope that Morgan will be fit tomorrow and that Malan and Stirlo do have any issues that I am unaware of.

I am not sure exactly where Dan Lincoln features in our pecking order, as a few weeks’ ago, he was suddenly awarded a contract for the rest of our campaign and had seemingly overtaken Nick Gubbins and Max Holden. However, Gubbo and Holden have been included in the squad ahead of Lincoln. After last night’s match, I wondered who of Lincoln and George Scott would make way were Morgan to be fit, but the answer to the question of whether Lincoln would remain in the side is obviously that he won’t, and it seems that the question of whether Scott would remain in the side is that he is likely to.

Gloucestershire have named a 13-man squad for this match consisting of Michael Klinger, Miles Hammond, Ian Cockbain, James Bracey, Ryan Higgins, James Taylor, Benny Howell, Andrew Tye, Tom Smith, Graeme van Buuren, David Payne, Chris Dent and Christopher Liddle.

JW- I'm fairly sure our domestic T20 takes precedence over the Eurotrash T20, as I think counties have to agree to release players for it.

I assume our attitude is that we don't mind Morgan missing the last 3 championship games, as it's most unlikely we would have selected him anyway.

Before tonight’s Somerset v Kent match, Middlesex were 3rd and Gloucestershire were 4th. However, Somerset’s win by 55 runs means that both ourselves and Glos drop down a place.

During their broadcast of the match, Sky showed a graphic detailing the most consecutive Twenty20 wins a team has achieved against a particular opponent. Although Middlesex have a poor record in this format over the years - and in matches v Gloucestershire in particular - we did not feature on this graphic. Kent’s record of 11 successive wins v Somerset prior to tonight put them joint-top on the graphic, although tonight’s result means that they missed out on the chance to go outright top.

Don't know if Kevin Hand slipped a sedative in to Bob Hunt's tea, but he's not quite as excitable as normal.

Probably evens at half time. After first 5 overs I thought we'd be chasing 190 or more.

Finn bowled really well on that pitch. Kept the total down well.

58/0 off 7...need to keep it up.

We're ahead on Duckie Lewis.

Victory confirmed.

Some clear blue water now between us and 5th place (We're now second)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2019 16:39 by chunkyinargyll.

Quote:

chunkyinargyll
Victory confirmed.
Some clear blue water now between us and 5th place (We're now second)

There was certainly plenty of clear blue water at Radlett!

A good performance, with Malan, Finny and Toby all excellent and a fine display in the field. At the end it didn't feel quite as comfortable as it looked on paper, with dark skies and a new batsman in.

Still 12 behind with 11 balls to go yet D/L give us a 9 run win, suggesting we were "worth" 21 more runs from those 11. Unlikely? Not complaining and I think we would have won but it might have been close.

It is great that Middlesex are once again well-placed to qualify for the knockout stages.

Not for the first time, our win came thanks to the bowling of Steven Finn and Toby Roland-Jones and the batting of Dawid Malan.

Finn and TRJ have gone from being seen as uneconomical to the complete opposite! Gloucestershire seemed to have a base to post a large total when they were 42-0 after 4 overs, but Finn and TRJ bowled the next 6 overs, during which period Glos scored 33-2, so that gave us some momentum.

It wasn’t the best of days for Nathan Sowter, Graeme van Buuran or Tom Smith. Indeed, Glos opted to give their two spinners a combined total of just 4 overs. However, Mujeeb Ur Rahman was once again fairly economical, and was surprisingly asked to bowl the final over of Glos’s innings, which was a task he did well, taking two wickets and conceding just four runs. Usually, Mujeeb bowls most of his overs early in innings, so it will be interesting to see whether there will be further occasions in which he bowls at the death.

Although we spent most of our chase either behind or marginally ahead of the rate required, the fact we kept wickets in hand kept the situation manageable. Glos could have done with taking at least a couple of early wickets, but Malan and Paul Stirling’s partnership of 61 for the first wicket ensured that didn’t happen. Had the rain not brought a slightly premature finish, it would have been interesting to see if Malan could have reached a century. Malan finished 9 short, with us 13 short of overtaking Gloucestershire’s total, although we could have theoretically scored 18 more runs had we scored 12 more to level the scores and then hit a 6.

The weather forecast prior to the match suggested that there would be an outside chance of rain, but there didn’t seem much threat for much of the match, which made it a surprise when the rain came bucketing down. As there wasn’t much threat, I didn't spend much of our chase paying attention to the D/L par score. I was worried that the wicket of Eoin Morgan would swing the par score from our favour to Glos’s favour, but thankfully it remained in our favour. As we were above the rate required when the rain fell, it would have been an injustice had we not won.

The Cricketer’s Nick Friend has written an article about Finn’s return to form.

The Press Association's reports of this match record the attendance as 2,227.

It's Duckworth Lewis Stern these days. Professor Stern gets extremely aggrieved if he's not given proper credit.

Dawid Malan has spoken to Middlesex’s YouTube page about this match:

Quote:

wembleylion
Still 12 behind with 11 balls to go yet D/L give us a 9 run win, suggesting we were "worth" 21 more runs from those 11. Unlikely? Not complaining and I think we would have won but it might have been close.

DLS has to go with what would normally be scored from 156-3 off the last 11 balls and 21 would be fairly normal these says. It can't take into account that a new batsman has just arrived at the crease, (or indeed which batsmen are at the crease) which might indeed have made it closer. It did seem to be fairly well under control though, with Malan doing what no Glos batsman did and going big.

The fickle nature of T20 was illustrated by Finn and TRJ being economical and Helm and Sowter taking stick, rather than the other way round. The moral is not to get too worked up about performance in an individual match.


Adelaide

It was clear for about 15 minutes before the rain came down that the game was likely to be curtailed.

I have little doubt had the game run its course we would have won, but for a few minutes leading up to the rain I was concerned we might be robbed. We ended up 9 runs ahead on DL, but if Scott had gone first ball (not that he gave a chance) DL might have reduced that lead to about 3, at which point Simpson would have come in not knowing whether he should concentrate on not getting out (rain about to come) or go for the runs. I had a horrible feeling DL might intervene to rob us of a certain win. Even if we lost another 2 or 3 wickets I still think we would have got over the line.

Mala in an absolute purple patch at the moment.

The ' cloudburst' when it arrived and continued to Stanmore Station on the drive back reduced visibility a huge amount and cleared the ground with a large crowd shoehorned in rapidly.

Only our second win over our bogey side, so very welcome.

On a smallish ground with the boundaries brought in to pack in more punters, the scores were lower than expected.

Credit to the out cricket of both sides. Mala was deprived of a chance of a ton and the early batsmen batting in a controlled manner viz a viz with the Cheltenham fixture.

The top four in both groups looks to be going to the wire which is music to Sky's ears.

Several contenders for mom but for getting us so close, Mala for me.