Tom holds hands up following poor start

SKIPPER Tom Abell has pointed the finger at the middle order, including himself, for Somerset’s dismal start to their County Championship campaign.

And Abell has challenged his fellow batsmen to now dig themselves out of the mess they’ve made, starting with their trip to Middlesex today.

Somerset are bottom of Division One, with just one draw and three losses from their redball games to date.

Abell has made just 90 runs, at an average of 12.85 this term, while none of fellow middleorder batsmen James Hildreth, Steven Davies and Peter Trego average more than 23.14.

“It’s massively disappointing, and not good enough,” said Abell. “All three games that we’ve lost, we’ve been in decent positions, and it’s our batting that’s letting us down time and time again.

“It’s something that needs addressing quickly.We need to be more ruthless, make it more difficult for the opposition – too often we’re getting out bang, bang, bang.

“Without a doubt there are three or four of us in the middle order who aren’t performing as we need to be.

“With the exception of (openers) Dean (Elgar) and Tres (Marcus Trescothick), as batters we’re not up to the mark at the moment.

“We can’t sit there feeling sorry for ourselves – we’ve got ourselves in this mess, so we need to step up and get out of it.”

Middlesex welcome Somerset to Lord’s off the back of a draw with Surrey – the result they’ve achieved in all three of their County Championship clashes this term.

Middlesex have boosted their squad by signing Tom Barber to a professional deal.

Formerly on Hampshire’s books, Barber made two List-A appearances for the Southampton based side, picking up the wickets of Kane Williamson and Andrew Gale in consecutive balls on his One-Day Cup debut against Yorkshire.