Emphatic:

Gloucestershire took less than half an hour to polish off Middlesex’s tail. Chasing 289 to win in the last innings, Middlesex never got close, falling to a crushing 103 run loss as they were dismissed for just 185. 388 runs for twenty wickets on a Lord’s pitch that is harder to bat on than it once was is still simply not good enough, even in the era of the ban on the use of heavy rollers immediately before and during matches.

Middlesex prop up the the County Championship Division Two. Gloucestershire leap-frogged them after this win and move on to the Oval with confidence. Fresh from his five wicket haul Gemaal Hussain was elated. “This is most special for me because it is at Lord’s and I contributed to the first win of the season for Gloucester, so this is definitely the most special for me,” Hussain told us. “It’s a great feeling – first time I’ve played at  Lord’s, so really good to do well and win as well for the first time.”

But what about Gloucestershire? “As a team our aim is for promotion,” said Hussain. “I believe we can get promoted, but at the same time, we’re looking at one game at a time, so we can take the positives out of this game and hopefully move on to the next ones after that. I’ve heard so much about Lord’s and it was great to experience it myself. The greats have played here and it’s a really good feeling to walk out and walk off knowing that we’ve got a win under our belt. It’s very special.”

Back to the Drawing Board:

Meanwhile, the splendid efforts of New Zealander Iain O’Brien were wasted. A magnificent 7 for 48 in the absence of England bowler Steven Finn – rested at the request of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as part of the 27-man performance squad – deserved more support. O’Brien is Middlesex’s overseas player and contributed plenty to their cause, especially in the first innings.

“I love bowling and I love taking wickets, so yeah, absolutely, there’s plenty of pleasure,” O’Brien told us despite the disappointment of Middlesex’s worst ever start to a season.  “I’ve been bowling pretty well in the three games that I’ve played and I’ve been really happy with how I’ve bowled, albeit a lack of wickets in the first couple, but to take wickets and to put your team in a position where we can get on top, yeah it’s great. I love taking wickets.”

O’Brien and Middlesex’s bowling did that, restricting the visitors to 268 in the first innings, but once again the batsmen failed to capitalise – dismissed for just 203. Trailing by 65 the bowlers once again dragged Middlesex back into contention, dismissing Gloucestershire for 223. Middlesex needed 289 runs to win, batting on a Lord’s pitch that showed signs of wear and tear. They capitulated for just 185 and defeat by over a hundred runs.

Nevertheless, O’Brien was able to take some pleasure from his own performance. “I’m always proud of my success and that’s something I do enjoy because I’m my own worst critic and so when I have success I have to enjoy that for myself because there’s often a lot of bad times, so absolutely I walk away from this game knowing that I took eight wickets in the match,” he said. “Okay I would have liked a couple more in the second innings, but I walk away from this match proud, knowing that I had a big part to play in the first innings.”

Luck:

Poor batting displays have cost the team dearly – a county that once boasted the phenomenal talents of all time greats Dennis Compton and Bill Edrich. Middlesex have taken just one batting point in four matches – a statistic that tells the story. They have taken twenty wickets in three of the four matches – that also tells the story. And finally they surrendered their last three wickets in less than half an hour on the final morning, made necessary only by poor light yesterday. Nevertheless, O’Brien refuses to panic.

“It’s just another one of those games that we’ve had where we’ve had great periods of success and we’ve done really well and then we’ve had great periods of failure and at the moment our periods of failure seem to be outweighing our periods of success,” said O’Brien. “That seems to be the way at the moment.”

However, he refuses to blame Middlesex’s batsmen for their current plight – bottom of the County Championship Division Two with four losses out four. While there is more wear and tear on pitches and some variability of bounce now, it is the same for both sides. The unpredictability helps to produce results. Surprisingly, O’Brien – a confirmed rabbit with the bat – sympathises with batsmen.

“There’s always been something in it for the bowler and that’s a little bit tough,” he says. “The batters use their skills. It does come down to a little bit of luck with the playing and missing and edging, so in terms of being able to strut your skills as a batter, it’s been very tough and that’s a big part of where we’re at.”

O’Brien points to bad luck. Their opponents played, but missed, while Middlesex’s batsmen got the edges. “We’ve nicked them,” said O’Brien. “I know it sounds pretty crazy, but a couple of teams we’ve played against haven’t nicked them and whether you blame it on luck or skill or whatever, we’ve nicked them and they’ve carried.”

Responsibility:

Despite the batting failures O’Brien accepts that the bowlers can do more too. “We’re playing some really, really good cricket in parts – just not enough of it,” he says. “We’ve taken twenty wickets in three of our four games, which a lot of the time has been for less than 500 runs, so we are still putting ourselves in positions where we should win games, but we’ve given up leads three times around the 150 mark and that’s just too hard to come back from.”

The batting has not produced, but O’Brien refuses to put all the blame on the batsmen “I’m not putting it all on the batters,” he said. “A couple of those leads could have been around the 80 mark – 70 or 80 – if we had nailed it with the ball and finished teams off better with the ball, but we’ve had too many periods of failure.”