Higgins leads Middlesex recovery against Glamorgan

Ryan Higgins struck the eighth first-class hundred of his career to steer Middlesex towards the safety of a draw on day three of their high-scoring encounter with Glamorgan at Lord’s.

The all-rounder in his second spell with the Seaxes made the most of a benign Lord’s pitch to plunder an unbeaten 127 and enable the hosts, faced with the scoreboard pressure of Glamorgan’s steepling first inning score of 620-3, to move to the verge of avoiding the follow-on with their impressive reply of 460-5.

He was ably assisted by wicketkeeper/batter Jack Davies who made 60, the pair sharing a fifth wicket stand of 153 having come together with their side still almost 350 runs in arrears. Their efforts came after Mark Stoneman fell three shy of a century.

The home side’s total marked the first time they had registered 400-plus in a first-class match at Lord’s since mustering 485 against Sussex in July 2022.

Glamorgan’s bowlers stuck manfully to the task throughout the day, on a track offering them nothing and with a Kookaburra ball which quickly went soft, Kiran Carlson becoming the first bowler in the match to take more than one wicket, returning 2-89.

Docile surface or not, Middlesex began the day 138-1, a daunting 482 runs in arrears and they might have lost Stoneman in the first over had a shy at the stumps from an unnecessarily risky single resulted in a direct hit.

Thereafter, he and the other overnight batter Max Holden were unperturbed, the later moving smoothly to 50. However, with his hundred beckoning Stoneman mistimed a drive and found only the hands of cover, ending a stand of 120.

As so often with large partnerships when one player falls the other quickly follows and while Stoneman’s departure could be put down to batter error, Holden fell to a well-executed plan, turning a ball off his hip into the hands of a judiciously placed Colin Ingram at leg-slip.

At 202-3 there would still have have been jitters for a Middlesex side who managed only five batting points in the whole of their 2023 campaign which ended in relegation.

However, as so often in that campaign it was a case of Higgins being the man to step up, he and debutant Leus De Plooy seeing them through to lunch without further loss.

Glamorgan took the new ball on the resumption and their hopes rose again when De Plooy’s innings was cut short on 37 by one from Mir Hamza which did just enough to beat the bat and trap him in front.

If the Welsh county sensed a door opening, Higgins and Davies joined forces to slam it shut. Higgins drove and cut with authority, mixing aggression with controlled defence to pass 50 for the 27th time in his career and he was within sight of three figures by tea.

Davies, given the nod to fill the shoes of wicketkeeping legend John Simpson – now at Sussex – over teammates Robbie White and Joe Cracknell, provided staunch support and reached his second first-class 50 early in the evening session.

Higgins had a bigger milestone in mind racing through the nineties with an exquisite straight drive before punching one to the short boundary at mid-wicket to score his second hundred in Middlesex colours and his first at the Home of Cricket.

Davies would fall six short of a new career-best when Carlson picked him up lbw but by then the hosts were within 45 of the follow-on mark.

Higgins though remains and with only 11 needed to avoid being asked to bat again the honours seem destined to be shared ahead of day four.