Yorkshire Ready For Crunch Tie With Middlesex

By JMB
September 15 2006

Yorkshire go in to the crucial County Championship fixture against Middlesex with Matthew Hoggard back in the side. Tim Bresnan (injured) and Jason Gillespie (in Australia) are both missing from the Yorkshire side, which is deperate to take points from the fixture against a relegation rival.

Yorkshire welcome back Hoggard who has managed only two Championship outings for Yorkshire so far this season, both of them against Sussex, and he has claimed five wickets at an average of almost 40, so he will be hoping to improve substantially upon that. He is now free to play Championship cricket for Yorkshire until the end of the season but will not take part in the two remaining one-dayers.

There is no comeback joy for fellow paceman Tim Bresnan, who remains sidelined with bruising to a bone in his lower back and will have a small injection on Thursday to try to reduce inflammation in the affected area. Bresnan then has the opportunity to rest for a few days and if the injection is successful he could feature in the last two Championship matches of the season which are both at Headingley. If Bresnan misses the remainder of the summer, however, it would almost certainly harm his chances of playing for England in the ICC Champions Trophy in India in October and November. Bresnan, who made his one-day international debut in the series against Sri Lanka, has been named in an initial squad of 30 for the competition and this will be reduced further shortly.

Yorkshire are also without Jason Gillespie, who is still training back home with Australia's Ashes squad. Andrew Gale, who scored a maiden first-class century in that match, has been overlooked for today's contest, while there is again no place for Gerard Brophy or Richard Dawson, who are on second team duty at Uxbridge.

Middlesex are bottom of the First Division table and with Yorkshire only three-and-a-half points above them, both teams know they are in the last-chance saloon with only the winners having any realistic hope of escaping relegation.

Middlesex's only win this season was against Yorkshire at Southgate when they were worthy victors by eight wickets, but for the current match they are without their England one-day pair of Ed Joyce and Jamie Dalrymple, who both played a big part in Yorkshire's downfall.

Middlesex's main destroyer, however, was fast bowler Chris Silverwood, who blasted his former team-mates with match figures of 8-64 and when he dismissed Andrew Gale in the second innings it brought him his 500th wicket in first-class cricket.

Yorkshire included all-rounder Ajmal Shahzad. If he and Adil Rashid play, it will be the first time that Yorkshire have had two cricketers from ethnic backgrounds in the same Championship side.

Yorkshire from: White, Sayers, McGrath, Lehmann, Lumb, Adil Rashid, Guy, Lawson, Ajmal Shahzad, Hoggard, Patterson, Kruis.