Middlesex cricketer’s column: The way it seams

Although I’d hoped to be fit to play against Sussex last week, I wasn’t fully recovered from my side strain.

Instead, I had to settle for our corporate seven-a-side day at Wormsley – and that was good fun, getting out there with the sponsors and other people who do a lot for the club.

The body feels great, it’s now a reconditioning process and I’ve got a programme in place, but there isn’t any specific target game that I’m looking at.

Frustrating though that is, in the long run it could work out well. The last month or six weeks of the season is when the seamers tend to be flagging, so hopefully at that point I’ll be fresh and ready to take a few overs off some of the other guys.

The idea is that we’ll still be in contention by then. That win against Sussex has brought us right back into the mix and our next Championship game’s against Durham, who are only a few points ahead of us.

It was a tricky pitch at Hove and the seamers looked quite dangerous, so to rack up nearly 500 and put them under pressure was vital – far and away the difference between the two sides.

Robbo’s innings was fantastic, and that’s brought him back into good nick. Then our bowlers did the business, despite Luke Wright doing his best to scupper our plans, just like he did at Lord’s.

I think we’ll have to have a team meeting about how to bowl at him next season! But the fact is that Sussex are one of the strongest teams and we’ve dominated them for seven days out of eight.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a massive game against Surrey in the t20. They got one over on us at The Oval, but hopefully in front of another packed house at Lord’s we’ll get them back.

We’ve played some really good cricket and the boys can feel confident of winning the game and taking a huge step towards the quarter-finals.