Middlesex CCC

After 2019 saw Mujeeb Ur Rahman play 9 group matches during Middlesex’s run to just a fourth Twenty20 quarter-final, in which he also appeared, he is set to return for the group stage and potential quarter-final of our campaign in 2020.

Mujeeb more often than not records an economy which is excellent by any Twenty20 standards, and is all the more impressive when it is considered that a lot of his overs are bowled in the powerplay. In our campaign in 2019, he recorded an economy of 7.23, which is impressive considering that most of the players ahead of him in the list of bowlers with better economies in this campaign bowled fewer overs and/or played in the north group, where scores tend to be lower.

We entered our 2019 campaign on the back of an extremely disappointing campaign in 2018, but the presence of the likes of Mujeeb, Paul Stirling, Dawid Malan, AB de Villiers and Eoin Morgan meant that we weren’t a million miles from being a world-class side. Hopefully de Villiers will return (as I think the club hope he will), otherwise we would really need a similar type of player to avoid being a lot weaker in 2020 due to the departures of Stirlo and Malan. Stirlo could play as an overseas player, but that would rule out de Villiers returning, unless they sign at different times. I would have thought that the fact de Villiers is not due to play at The Hundred will increase the chances of him returning to Middlesex.

JW- Don't forget we've already got Handscomb as one of our overseas.

I thought he was available for everything, so that rules out Stirlo, or AB.

After I wrote my post, I remembered that Middlesex had signed Peter Handscomb. The article announcing his signing doesn’t explicitly say that he will be available for our Twenty20 campaign, and merely says that he “is expected to be available for the entire season” and will captain us in the two other formats, although I nonetheless assume that he will play in T20, despite his statistics in this format being weaker than in the two other formats.

If it turns out that our two overseas player berths are now filled, then our batting line-up is set to be a lot weaker than in 2019, especially at the start of our campaign due to Eoin Morgan playing for England v Australia. We will probably have little choice but to call upon Handscomb. I feel more optimistic about our bowling line-up, as Mujeeb will return, while Tom Helm, Toby Roland-Jones, Steven Finn and Nathan Sowter all performed well at various stages in our campaign last season. If they can all bowl economically, maybe we won’t need star batsmen!

I suppose Handscomb not captaining in T20 does open up the possibility of leaving him out in favour of someone else, as I think counties will be allowed up to three players on the books at the same time next year (but only two can play).

I had assumed it was more to do with Morgan captaining England at T20 but not Middlesex, and it was an anomaly they wanted to correct.