GLAM LET IT SLIP IN DEFEAT TO MIDDLESEX
MIDDLESEX wrapped up victory against Glamorgan by an innings and 82 runs inside the first hour of the third day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match in Cardiff.
Glamorgan started the day still needing 111 runs to make Middlesex bat again but having seen the Middlesex tail put on 226 runs in their innings there would have been a glimmer of hope.
Those hopes faded very fast as two wickets fell within the first three overs of the day with Toby RolandJones claiming his first five wicket haul of the season.
Middlesex finish this match with 22 points to Glamorgan’s three after the visitors put in a near perfect performance on second and third days of this match. The two Glamorgan not out batsmen at the start of the day were Sam Northeast and Michael Neser and it needed to be those two who put a real dent in the deficit. That is not what Glamorgan got. Both were dismissed by Toby RolandJones within the space of eight balls, Northeast edging to second slip and Neser caught at mid-on.
With just nine runs added to the overnight score Glamorgan were eight wickets down with Middlesex still over a hundred runs in front.
It was Tom Helm how wrapped things up, first trapping Timm van der Gugten lbw before bowling Michael Hogan when Glamorgan’s number 11 had a massive swing at a ball that crashed into his stumps.
The performance of the Middlesex bowlers will leave them with some interesting selection issues going forward. Roland-Jones, Helm, Martin Andersson and Shaheen Shah Afridi were all excellent in this game. With Ethan Bamber and Tim Murtagh waiting in the wings it will be interesting to see who misses out in the coming matches.
For Glamorgan it will be a case of the team who were on the field in this match finding a way to replicate their performances from the victory over Nottinghamshire in the last round of the County Championship.
The county’s head coach, Matthew Maynard, admitted his side had failed to make the most of battling their way into the game after a slow start.
“I think the wicket was maybe a 220 to 250 par on first innings,” said Maynard.
“So, we felt way below there. We didn’t show the same discipline with the bat that we showed in the first two games of the season.
“We didn’t set a tone in the second over and we had some soft dismissals in that first innings. We fought back into the game really well with the bowling group, got us back in at 110 for six. Got another one there you never know.
“There may have been a lead of 40 to 60 and we are well in the game. As it happened a 110 partnership followed by two 60 odd partnerships took the game away from us.
“The Middlesex bowlers exploited the conditions really well.”