Middlesex scramble to win over Glamorgan
Henry Brookes claimed the vital wicket of Glamorgan's top scorer Chris Cooke
- Published
Rothesay County Championship Division Two, Lord's (day four)
Glamorgan: 199: Ul Hassan 65, Kellaway 54*; Roland-Jones 3-44
& 329: Cooke 69, Carlson 54; Roland-Jones 3-68
Middlesex: 470-9 dec: Holden 107, Du Plooy 89, Geddes 83; Kellaway 4-61
& 59-1: Du Plooy 27*
Middlesex (21 pts) beat Glamorgan (1 pt) by nine wickets
Middlesex scrambled to their first win of the season beating Glamorgan and the weather in a nine-wicket victory at Lord's.
They needed just 59 despite some belated defiance from the visitors, reaching their target after a nerve-racking weather delay.
Glamorgan were bowled out for 329 in their second innings with Chris Cooke (69) and Ned Leonard (47) leading their final day resistance.
Toby Roland-Jones (3-68) was the most successful of a team effort with the ball, while Henry Brookes made the key breakthrough.
The visitors suffered a second loss in three outings to slip to bottom of Division Two.
- Published31 January
Glamorgan resumed on 186-5, still 85 runs short of making Middlesex bat again, with the home side in a hurry to wrap the game up given the poor weather forecast for the afternoon.
But Middlesex managed just two wickets in the first session despite Roland-Jones striking early on an overcast morning, as Kiran Carlson looked disappointed to have been given out caught behind.
Timm van der Gugten defied the bowlers for 70 minutes for his 28 before Dane Paterson bowled him with the second delivery of the new ball.
Cooke survived a couple of strong lbw shouts from Roland-Jones but he and Ned Leonard, whose previous best score was 16, nudged Glamorgan precariously ahead the over after lunch.
The eighth-wicket pair settled in with a partnership of 88 and were starting to play their shots, causing Middlesex some frustration.
Brookes got the long-awaited breakthrough when he won an lbw verdict against Cooke after his gritty three and a half hour stay.
Leonard's valiant effort ended in the next over when he tried to reverse-sweep persevering spinner Zafar Gohar and was bowled, and Brookes had Shoaib Bashir caught as the end came quickly.
Max Holden was promoted to finish the game off quickly, hitting Leonard's first ball for six and his fourth to mid-off, before bad light and rain interrupted at 16-1 off 3.3 overs.
Middlesex deserved the chance to seal their victory but had to endure a protracted delay after tea in poor light with the hover-cover on, and the umpires and ground staff waiting in the middle until the resumption at 17:25 BST.
Stevie Eskinazi and Leus Du Plooy wasted no time in getting the required 43 off a further 4.2 overs, Du Plooy finishing the match with two leg-side sixes off Leonard into the Mound Stand in the space of three balls.
Middlesex travel to Derby on Friday, 25 April, while Glamorgan sit out the next round before hosting Derbyshire a week later.
Middlesex captain Toby Roland-Jones said:
"It's very pleasing to be stood here with the win under our belts, there were times with the bad light we thought we might not get back out there, but we felt over the course of the four days we probably deserved to come out with the win.
"The pitch evened up and they played very stubbornly, but we knew if we stuck to it we had enough to take those wickets, it was then a matter of the weather.
"Over three games, we felt we've played good enough cricket to come out with more than we have from the first two. This game showed the squad's in a good place, the guys mostly bowled really well and the batting line-up seems strong with runs from a lot of different angles."
Glamorgan coach Richard Dawson told BBC Sport Wales:
"We knew we had to dig in hard, the way Cookey and Ned went about that partnership was really good after losing Kiran early. If we' d managed to hold on another half-hour, who knows what would have happened.
"We have to to try and put the opposition on the back foot in the first innings rather than clawing it back on days three and four, which has been a theme of the three games.
"We're getting starts (with the bat) but we need to convert those into big scores. On flat pitches like this, how do we create chances with the bowling unit, but I can't fault the work-rate.
On England spinner Shoaib Bashir's three-match loan spell from Somerset:
"He brings energy, he's a great lad, a young bowler, he's still learning so it was great to have him involved and he's got a bright future. It's early season with pitches not offering massive spin, he'll take things from these three games and it'll make him a better bowler."