LV COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP
Yorkshire 390 & 5-0
Middlesex 175 & 219
Yorkshire won by 10 wickets
TIM MURTAGH conceded a week was a long time in County Championship cricket following Middlesex’s first defeat of the season against Yorkshire today.
Just six days ago Murtagh (pictured) and Co appeared poised to reach the summit of the domestic game’s top tier after making then leaders Sussex follow-on, only for dropped catches to see them fail to force a win on the final day.
The emotional disappointment and huge amount of mental energy expended over two and a half days and 210 continuous overs in the field in their bid for victory took its toll this week as more catches were spilled in a below par performance against Yorkshire who thrashed them by 10 wickets to seize top spot themselves.
It was Middlesex’s first Championship defeat at ‘The Home of Cricket’ for more than two years and should Durham beat Warwickshire in another of this week’s fixtures Angus Fraser’s side will drop out of the top three for the first time this season.
Pace-man Murtagh admitted the tenants of Lord’s had been short in all areas against the white rose county.
He said: “We have been pretty good at taking our catches for the last two or three years, but the Sussex game took a lot out of us especially mentally. It was really disappointing we did not go on and nail it.
“The first day here against Yorkshire I thought we bowled pretty well so to only have them two wickets down for over 200 was a bit of a killer.
“But talking about things with Richard Johnson (bowling coach) we felt we were maybe 10 per cent down on energy because it was such a long hard week against Sussex and we were not quite at the races.”
Murtagh conceded the game had probably been lost as early as the first morning when on a pitch nowhere near as easy to bat on as the strip used against Sussex, he and the other bowlers beat the bat repeatedly with little or no reward and lost James Harris to a side strain which ruled him out of the attack for the remainder of the day.
He added: “It’s difficult because another couple of wickets with that new ball and it could have been a different story.
“James Harris going down injured did not help either, so we were slightly off and slightly fatigued and when that happens more often than not in this division you get punished. All credit to Yorkshire who are a very good team.
“I was always a little bit fearful when they managed to get 390 because the wicket was doing a bit and I thought we might end up nicking the ones that they missed.”
So it proved as with Chris Rogers, in his last four-day match before disappearing for Ashes duty and Sam Robson both suffered rare failures and apart from Gareth Berg’s typically robust 54 the rest of the batsman capitulated in the face of excellent bowling by the Yorkshire seam attack.
Following on it was the spin of Adil Rashid (5-78) which undermined Middlesex’s second dig where again only some late hitting by Berg (39) ensured Yorkshire would have to bat again.
