Promotion-chasing Middlesex wrap up victory at Derby
Vitality County Championship Division Two, Derby (day three)
Derbyshire 173 & 119: Madsen 32; Roland-Jones 5-38
Middlesex 358: Stoneman 115, De Caires 80, Holden 68; Moore 3-55, Morley 3-76
Middlesex (22 pts) beat Derbyshire (3 pts) by an innings and 66 runs
Middlesex wrapped up their fifth win of the Division Two season to keep their Vitality County Championship promotion challenge mathematically still alive after a dismal Derbyshire succumbed to a three-day defeat by an innings and 66 runs at the Incora County Ground.
With skipper Toby Roland-Jones continuing his impressive streak of form with another five-wicket haul, Derbyshire, 74 for three overnight, were shot out for 119 after 87 minutes of the day’s only session.
Roland-Jones finished with five for 38 for match figures of 10 for 72. The 36-year-old seamer has taken five wickets or more in six of his last nine innings to total 52 wickets for the season. Ethan Bamber and leg spinner Luke Hollman picked up two wickets each, with 20-year-old left-arm seamer Noah Cornwell completing their demise with his maiden first-class wicket.
The result means that the race for promotion goes down to the final round, although last week’s defeat against Gloucestershire at Lord’s left the odds stacked heavily against Middlesex, handing second-placed Yorkshire a 15-point advantage going into this week’s games.
A seventh defeat of the season means that Derbyshire are almost certain to finish bottom of Division Two for the first time since 2016 after a poor
season under head coach Mickey Arthur.
It will be the 16th time in their Championship history that Derbyshire have finished bottom of the pile, comfortably ahead of nearest challengers Somerset.
On a pitch that was lively throughout, making life difficult for batters against both the quicker bowlers and spinners, Derbyshire lost their last eight wickets for 45 runs, veteran Wayne Madsen top-scoring with a modest 32 and concussion stand-in Mitch Wagstaff making 27.
In gloomy conditions that required the floodlights to be on at the start, the breakthrough that Middlesex made when Wagstaff was out in the last over of day two opened the way to four more wickets in the first 45 minutes as Derbyshire subsided somewhat feebly.
Madsen, who had helped Wagstaff add 58 for the third wicket, was the first to go, edging behind off Bamber.
If the Derbyshire veteran was undone by a fine delivery, there was less that could be said in mitigation as David Lloyd pulled straight to midwicket, handing a second wicket to the Warwickshire-bound Bamber.
Aneurin Donald, dropped at backward point the ball before Lloyd departed, added only one more run before giving Roland-Jones a low return catch; Zak Chappell edged his first ball to gully.
Those two in two balls took the Middlesex captain to 51 wickets for the season, the 36-year-old seamer’s second half-century in three seasons and evidence of why the county have offered him a contract extension while letting other senior players move on.
Harry Moore was caught behind off an inside edge to give Roland-Jones his second five-for of the match before Jack Morley edged low to slip off Hollman and Cornwell bowled Alex Thomson with the fourth ball of his solitary over.
