‘We’ll give anyone a match’: Stoneman and Middlesex relish top-flight return

M edia day at Lord’s and the nursery pavilion is abuzz as players in a variety of kits are filmed with a variety of props for a variety of broadcasters. After a five-year absence Middlesex are back in the top flight, though as this scene plays out that fact is probably more likely to have affected the number of journalists present than the players themselves.

There is a buzz before the start of any season, and to ask a professional cricketer if they are more motivated by the prospect of a top-flight campaign than they might have been in Division Two is less an inquiry than an insult. That doesn’t stop the Spin from having a go.

“There’s that extra level of excitement knowing you’re not playing to be the 11th best team in the country,” Mark Stoneman says. “You don’t want to be the 11th best team in the country, you want to be the best team in the country. So I’m very excited to see where we are when we pit ourselves against the best.”

Few are predicting a struggle. Middlesex appear to have a handy combination of youth and experienceand batting and seam-bowling strength – though the loss of the spinner Keshav Maharaj, who ruptured an achilles while celebrating a wicket when playing for South Africa last month, will be keenly felt. In Stoneman and John Simpson they had two of the nine players who reached 1,000 runs in Division Two last year and in Toby Roland-Jones the division’s most productive bowler, with 67 wickets at an average of 18.80. Tom Helm’s form in all formats earned him a place in England’s white-ball squad.

“I said at the start of last season that I felt we had a squad good enough to not be in Division Two,” says the seamer Tim Murtagh, 22 years after his County Championship debut and with 985 wickets to