mEdia day at Lord’s and the nursery pavilion is abuzz as avid gamers in numerous kits are filmed with numerous props for numerous broadcasters. After a five-year absence Middlesex are again within the height flight, although as this scene performs out that reality is almost certainly much more likely to have affected the choice of newshounds provide than the avid gamers themselves.
There is a buzz ahead of the beginning of any season, and to invite a certified cricketer if they’re extra motivated via the chance of a top-flight marketing campaign than they could were in Division Two is much less an inquiry than an insult. That does not prevent the Spin from having a move.
“There’s that extra level of excitement knowing you’re not playing to be the 11th best team in the country,” Mark Stoneman says. “You don’t want to be the 11th best team in the country, you want to be the best team in the country. So I’m very excited to see where we are when we pit ourselves against the best.”
Few are predicting a struggle. Middlesex appear to have a handy combination of youth and experience and batting and seam-bowling strength – though the loss of spinner Keshav Maharaj, who ruptured an achilles while celebrating a wicket when playing for South Africa last month, will be keenly felt. In Stoneman and John Simpson they had two of the nine players who reached 1,000 runs in Division Two last year and in Toby Roland-Jones the division’s most productive bowler, with 67 wickets at an average of 18.80. Tom Helm’s form in all formats earned him a place in England’s white-ball squad.
“I said at the start of last season that I felt we had a squad good enough not to be in Division Two,” says the seamer Tim Murtagh, 22 years after his County Championship debut and with 985 wickets to his name for the club, who is going into this season in a new player-coach role. “It felt like our time and it felt like the guys had played enough cricket and experienced enough to get ourselves out of that division, which we did.
“I’m really optimistic and excited about what we can do. You don’t want to make big statements about coming straight up and winning it, but that has happened before. If we play well and things go our way then who knows? It’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen, but we’ll give anyone a match.”
Middlesex’s elevated status is not the only significant change to English first-class cricket. Last summer, there was much talk about Andrew Strauss’s high-performance review, prompted by the England Test side’s performances over the previous 12 months. The national side is provoking discussions of a very different nature and given the proposals made by Strauss included reducing the number of County Championship matches and the chance of teams being promoted, there is surprising relief among these just-promoted players that some of those outcomes may have been seen off.
“We need to champion the English domestic game a bit more and appreciate what we do have,” says Stoneman, whose moderate of 48.8 opening ultimate 12 months used to be his easiest since 2017. “It helps create some very successful cricketers.
“It’s always being knocked as a reaction to what’s happening on the international scene, so England lose the Ashes away – far from the first time – and all of a sudden the county game gets called into question. Then on the back of that we have the revolution with Stokesy and Brendon McCullum and then all the praise goes elsewhere.
“Removing relegation and stuff like that is nonsense. In a promotion race, when one-point swings over a couple of wickets or a partnership can be so important, that’s a big learning curve for a young player.
“If you’re a young guy coming through, batting with a senior player and you’re working to get 400 or to save a game for a draw – and the draw has been demonized a lot recently – that’s really important for a young player’s development.”
Those demonised attracts might be rewarded with 5 issues this 12 months, down from ultimate 12 months’s 8, one among a couple of minor tweaks supposed to inspire attacking cricket – although the instance being set via England’s Test aspect will have achieved that every one on its own.
“Whether that comes off or not for everyone, and whether it’s as easy to do on some of the wickets in county cricket compared to Test cricket, I certainly think there are going to be some players – maybe not sides – who use it as a tactic,” says Murtagh. “Perhaps guys who would possibly have idea they are miles clear of taking part in Test cricket, and I’m pondering particularly of fine white-ball avid gamers, it will give them an actual incentive to grasp they are no longer that some distance away. If we now have a dry summer season like we did ultimate 12 months that would possibly inspire it somewhat extra.
“It’s one thing as a bowling unit particularly we want to pay attention to – there will be extra blokes working down the wicket at us and looking to wreck it excessive than in all probability there were in years long gone via. We simply wish to be in a position for that.
Their season begins with the talk over with of Essex on Thursday. It’s time for Middlesex to turn how in a position they’re.