Glam suffer blow in the promotion race with defeat at Lord’s
MIDDLESEX swept aside Glamorgan by 10 wickets at Lord’s and leapfrogged their opponents in the battle to secure an LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two promotion spot.
It took the Seaxes less than an hour on the final morning to seal a comprehensive win that catapults them into second place in the table, 12 points clear of Glamorgan with two rounds of matches to play.
Seamer Toby Roland-jones finished with figures of five for 61 – his fourth five-wicket haul of the summer – as Glamorgan were bowled out for 220 in their second innings.
That left the home side needing just 45 for victory and opening pair Mark Stoneman and Sam Robson knocked those off in only 5.2 overs.
Having gone into the fourth day with a narrow lead of 15, Glamorgan extended it by another 29 before Rolandjones, already the Championship’s leading wicket-taker, added two more to wrap up the innings.
Ajaz Patel – who had been put down by Ethan Bamber in Roland-jones’ previous over – was first to depart for eight, held at mid-off by Tim Murtagh.
Last man Michael Hogan went for his shots, hitting over the top and hammering Roland-jones and Murtagh to the boundary in a cameo knock of 14 that ensured the visitors bettered their first-innings total of 214.
However, Bamber atoned for his earlier drop by running back to take a harder, steepling catch when Hogan took one swing too many at Rolandjones, leaving Middlesex to chase a modest target.
Their openers made short work of the 45 required, with Robson (25 not out) crashing three consecutive boundaries off former team-mate James Harris and Stoneman (20no) confirmed victory by sweeping Patel to the fence.
“We had a poor session with the bat and it’s cost us the game, essentially,” said Glamorgan head coach Matt Maynard.
“After watching Dave (Lloyd) and Eddie (Byrom) play as they did, putting on that 123 and going at four an over and making it look very easy, maybe a bit of complacency set in.
“We lost some poor wickets. There was no momentum and we didn’t try and wrestle any back, so we’re bitterly disappointed.
“We’re looking for one of our guys to get a big hundred to put us in a position to score 400 runs and we haven’t managed that in the last two Championship
matches.
“So we need to get that right for the last two games if we’ve got any chance of promotion. We need to get maximum points from both games to stand any chance.”
Middlesex captain Tim Murtagh, on the other hand, was delighted with the outcome as his side stole a march in the promotion battle.
“I’m really happy with the character we’ve shown and I think it was an important marker, the comprehensive nature of the win against a team who had gone above us last game,” he said.
“We’ve done it the tough way, which is really pleasing and we’ve had a couple of big match-winning performances with Mark Stoneman’s hundred – on that pitch, he looked the most comfortable anyone did throughout the game.
“Then Toby (Roland-jones) with a five-for – he’s such a big player for us, he gets wickets when we’re struggling.
“We certainly didn’t start as well as we’d have liked with the ball but we hung in there and got our rewards in that last session, which was as good a session of cricket as I’ve been involved in here.”