Northamptonshire’s bowlers shared the wickets on the second day of the Club’s warm up match against Middlesex.
Following a batting day yesterday it was time for the bowlers to show their stuff with a few new faces in the Northamptonshire attack. Bowling Coach Chris Liddle was pleased with the efforts of his squad as they consistently chipped away throughout the 90 overs.
“It’s good to get some miles in the legs ahead of the first game and it’s really good to see lads put spells back to back.” Liddle said.
“We’ve picked up wickets, we’ve had tight spells where lads have bowled well together as a unit, so it’s been a really pleasing day.”
Ben Sanderson wasted no time in opening his wicket tally for the year, finding the outside edge in just his second over of the morning. Brandon Glover then claimed his first wicket in a Northamptonshire shirt, much to the delight of his long term coach Liddle.
“He showed the class that he’s got today, I don’t think Brandon’s played a red ball game properly for a couple of years really so it’ll be nice for him to get the feel of back to back overs and building a spell up.
He bowled with real pace and we were looking to see if there was any drop off in pace or intensity in the way all the guys bowled but they managed to keep their pace up and hit the wicket hard during the day which is a credit to all the work they’ve put in since they’ve come back to training.”
Today also saw a maiden wicket for paceman Jack White whose time at the Club has been plagued with injury. Liddle was pleased with what he saw from the quick, putting into practice what he’d seen in training.
“I feel a bit for Jack, he’s managed to overcome a number of injuries and worked really hard to get back fit. To see him go out there and bowl the way he did today, consistency wise and he just looked threatening from the start.
“It’s what we’ve seen from him in the nets so it’s nice to see him do it in a game, it’ll be great for him confidence wise.”
Skipper Adam Rossington rotated through 8 bowlers over the course of the day, with wickets being spread amongst the group, a positive sign in the eyes of Liddle.
“The depth we’ve got at the moment is brilliant, we’ve got a great bowling squad here so it’s just about getting properly up to game speed which I think we are now.
We’ve got some players that haven’t played today that we can bring back into the mix too, so you bring them back into the selections issues when trying to pick a bowling line up and it’s brilliant, it’s exactly what you want.”
Focus now turns to the Club’s first fixture in the Bob Willis Trophy at Edgbaston on Saturday.
Middlesex 307/6 (Buck 2/43, Muzarabani 1/26)