Middlesex begin their County Championship campaign on Sunday when Warwickshire are the visitors to Lord’s. Last year, they finished second but were well behind Yorkshire, who retained their title and are strong favourites to win it for a third time in a row.
Here, vice-captain James Franklin, batsman Dawid Malan and bowler Toby Roland-Jones discuss how Middlesex plan to stop the Tykes.
What makes Yorkshire such a good team?
JF: “They’ve recruited well and success means that people want to go there. They’re obviously building something special up there. Playing against them, you feel as though it truly is 11 players coming up against you.
“They’ve obviously got some special Yorkshire bond up in that dressing room and we’re trying to find that this season, in our own way.”
Can Middlesex overhaul them this season?
DM: “Yorkshire have been a fantastic team over the last few years. We’ve been steadily improving and our results have shown that. We’ve built a squad of players that can hopefully push them this year.
“We’ve beaten them twice in the last two years – I think we’re the only team that’s done that – so there’s no reason why we can’t catch them, if we play to our ability and everything clicks, and players stay fit and find form at the right time.”
What will Middlesex need to add to their game to challenge?
TRJ: “One thing would be to get on top earlier, to really stamp our foot down and dominate games a little bit more, certainly in the Championship.
“We’ve looked to gain an identity as a side, to make sure that we’re very difficult to beat first and foremost but also to really look to get at sides early and to compete with the best. Beating Yorkshire goes to show that we’re as good as anyone on our day, really.”
JF: “With what we did last year, most other years we probably would have been closer to winning than we were, it’s just that Yorkshire had an unbelievable year. We’ve just got to fight hard, put runs on the board, take 20 wickets.
“We’ve got the depth in the bowling attack that if someone gets injured we’ve got good replacements there, and the top four or five guys have got to really put their hands up with the bat and try and put out some strong performances.”
How close are Middlesex to matching the quality of Yorkshire’s squad?
DM: “If you look at the way we started in 2014 we were right at the top of the table and then suddenly we just lost momentum. We had a few injuries and people lost a bit of form towards the end.
“But I think we’ve got a better depth in the squad – we’ve got Eoin Morgan that will pop in at some point, we’ve got Finny [Steve Finn] available for the first few games. There’s no reason why we can’t keep the momentum with the players and depth we’ve got in the squad.”
How important is a win in the opening game in setting down a marker?
JF: “It’s a long old season with 16 Championship games. Last year we fought really hard for most of the season, in games that we didn’t really dominate from start to finish. Most of the wins we got we really had to fight hard to get.
“We’ve got to be very consistent from start to finish. If we make a good start against Warwickshire, hopefully that’ll be a good line in the sand for us.”
This post was last modified on 15/04/2016