County Championship: Middlesex beat Derbyshire by 194 runs – BBC Sport

Vitality County Championship Division Two, Lord’s (day four)

Middlesex 433 & 302: Robson 67, Higgins 67, Du Plooy 59; Thomson 4-115

Derbyshire 339 & 202: Chappell 50, Thomson 41; Brooks 3-29, Bamber 3-48

Middlesex (23 pts) beat Derbyshire (5 pts) by 194 runs

Ethan Bamber tore the heart out of Derbyshire’s rearguard as Middlesex secured a 194-run win on the final day of their County Championship Division Two match at Lord’s.

The seamer took 3-6 in 10 balls on route to final figures of 3-48 as the visitors slid from 58-1 to 70-5 in pursuit of what would have been Derbyshire’s record fourth-innings chase of 397.

Brave resistance from Zak Chappell with 50 and Alex Thomson’s 41 prolonged the game deep into the final session, but Henry Brookes returned to clean up the tail and sealed a third win of the season for the hosts which kept them second behind leaders Sussex.

The hosts got an early breakthrough when Ryan Higgins found the leading edge of Luis Reece’s bat and gully Martin Andersson took the catch.

David Lloyd and Brooke Guest steadied the ship before a debatable umpiring decision changed the course of the morning.

Guest was struck on the pad by a ball sliding down leg, but umpire Naeem Ashraf raised his finger.

Brookes struck in the next over, jagging one back from outside off to pin Lloyd lbw before Bamber produced a beauty which swung into Wayne Madsen and straightened on pitching, beating the outside edge and crashing into off stump.

Bamber was not finished there, striking again in his next over when wicketkeeper Jack Davies, standing up to the stumps, held on to an edge to dismiss Aneurin Donald.

Lunch provided brief respite before Toby Roland-Jones trapped Anuj Dal lbw.

Matt Lamb resisted for a while in a stand of 42 with Thomson before the introduction of leg-spinner Luke Hollman accounted for him caught at square-leg on the sweep.

Thomson, in company with Chappell, continued the defiance in a 71-run stand to give Derbyshire hope of an unlikely draw.

But Chappell drove Hollman to cover before Brookes ended Thomson’s three-hour vigil and then saw off Daryn Dupavillon.

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters’ Network.

Middlesex skipper Toby Roland-Jones:

“It was a hard-earned win. One of the better feelings you get in the first-class game is when you feel like you’ve really worked over four days and played some really good cricket.

“On the second day we found ourselves pretty far short of our standards which we like to set ourselves as a bowling group, but I’m really pleased with the way we bounced back from that day and wrestled back the initiative in the game.

“Today was a good old-fashioned hard-working day and we got our rewards in the end.”

Derbyshire head coach Mickey Arthur:

“It’s a record of the last interview and the one before. It’s very simple. We get ourselves into positions where the game presents itself to us and we haven’t been able to take hold of it.

“Day 1 we had them 189-6 and 230-7. That’s where the game presents itself. If we knock them over there, we start dominating the game. Similarly, day three which is a moving day we start 308-4 and we lose 6-22.

“When you lose a session, you can’t lose it as big as we’ve lost those two. In amongst all that there is some pretty good stuff, but you need to play for three sessions a day and not two and a half.”