Middlesex earn early finish on day three with innings win over Glamorgan

MIDDLESEX wrapped up victory against Glamorgan by an innings and 82 runs inside the first hour of the third day of their County Championship match in Cardiff.

Glamorgan started the day still needing 111 runs to make their opponents 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 Roland-Jones claiming his first five wicket haul of the season.

Middlesex finished the match with 22 points to Glamorgan’s three after the visitors put in a near-perfect performance on the second and third days of the match.

Sam Northeast and Michael Neser started the day at the crease for Glamorgan and it needed to be those two to put a real dent in the deficit, but that is not what the hosts got.

Both were dismissed by Roland-Jones within the space of eight balls, Northeast (21) edging to second slip and Neser (27) caught at mid-on.

With just nine runs added to the overnight score, Glamorgan were eight wickets down with Middlesex still more than 100 runs in front.

It was Tom Helm who wrapped things up, first trapping Timm Van Der Gugten lbw before bowling Michael Hogan – both cheaply – 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 Afridi were all excellent in this game and – 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 performance from the victory over Nottinghamshire in the last round.

Middlesex captain Peter Handscombe said: “Great way to start. I think that’s pretty close to the blueprint that we want to play this – we have been doing a lot of work on our identity and how we want to go about it as a group. That was very, very impressive. To come in and see what all the boys have done over the pre-season, all the hard work they have done, and play a game like that is just awesome.

“We missed [Toby Roland-Jones] last year for quite a long period of the season so it is great to see him back, a clean bill of health and just bowling beautifully. He didn’t miss, he just came in and to be relentless on his line and length. Credit to him, he has obviously done a lot of work to get his body right and then in pre-season he has come out better and stronger for it.”