Match Preview – Middlesex v Gloucestershire
6 July 2019
Gloucestershire will be looking to get back to winning ways as they travel to Merchant Taylors’ to take on Middlesex in the Specsavers County Championship.
The side lost their unbeaten record, which had spanned 11 games across 2018 and 2019, in their last outing at home to Glamorgan but they remain firmly in the hunt for promotion sitting just 19 points behind Sussex in third with two games in hand.
Head Coach, Richard Dawson spoke about the team’s eagerness to get back to County Championship action, “We’ve had a bit of time with no cricket since the white ball games earlier this week, so the lads are rested up and we’re ready to go again. We want to get back to what we were doing before the Glamorgan match give it our best over the next four days.”
10 days have passed since the final day of their last four-day game but the team have been kept busy with two One-Day games against Australia A and back-to-back T20 matches against the Netherlands national team.
Chadd Sayers returns to the squad after being rested for the Glamorgan game due to muscle tightness in his quad. Chadd has bowled consistently in his first two First-class matches, picking up three wickets in the last fixture he played against Leicestershire.
18-year-old Ben Charlesworth is in the preliminary squad after finishing his studies and performing well against the Australia A team alongside a terrific 144 not out against Somerset in the Second XI Championship. James Bracey also features after earlier today being named in the England Lions squad to face Australia A next week.
BREAKING NEWS - Bracey named in England Lions squad for Australia A game@bobbybracey25 has been named in the England Lions squad to face Australia A in a four-day match!!
— Gloucestershire Cricket🏏 (@Gloscricket) July 6, 2019
Congratulations Bobby, thoroughly deserved👏👍
Read here⤵️⤵️#GoGlos💛🖤
Gloucestershire’s 13-man squad:
Dent, Hammond, Bracey, Roderick, Howell, Charlesworth, Higgins, van Buuren, Payne, Sayers, Shaw, M Taylor, Drissell
Gloucestershire have faced Middlesex once already this season in the Royal London One-Day Cup, a game that sparked the emergence of James Bracey as a top order batsman. Middlesex, despite currently sitting bottom in Division Two of the County Championship, have a very similar record to Gloucestershire with just one more loss on their record.
Dawid Malan leads the Middlesex team into the game without the Irish duo of big hitter Paul Stirling and one of their standout performers thus far, Tim Murtagh. However, Stephen Eskinazi and Nick Gubbins who scored 107* and 98* when the two sides met earlier this season both feature.
“They’ve got Dawid Malan, who has played for England who is coming in with some good form. Where they sit in the table probably isn’t a fair reflection of what they have as a team, they have a good mixture of experience and young players so it’s going to be a tough one for us.”
Middlesex’s 13-man squad:
Dawid Malan, Ethan Bamber, Tom Barber, Stephen Eskinazi, Nick Gubbins, Tom Helm, Max Holden, Sam Robson, Toby Roland-Jones, George Scott, John Simpson, Nathan Sowter, Robbie White
