Tim Wigmore's report will be along later but in the meantime here is the ECB Reporters Network on Middlesex's first win of the season
Toby Roland-Jones again pressed his England Test claims as he spearheaded an innings and 64-run Middlesex victory inside three days against Yorkshire at a sweltering Lord’s. England start their four-match series against South Africa at Lord’s on July 6, and Roland-Jones has a strong case to be included.
Roland-Jones took his season’s first-class wicket tally to 22 at 31 runs apiece as Yorkshire were bowled out for 208 and 174 after being asked to follow on in reply to Middlesex’s first innings’ 446. Middlesex take 23 points, and Yorkshire just three.
On a pitch producing more variable bounce, the accuracy and pace of Roland-Jones and Tim Murtagh made them a testing proposition and, with Ollie Rayner, Steven Finn and James Franklin also chipping in, Middlesex made sure of their first Specsavers County Championship victory of the summer – at the sixth attempt.
It has been a frustrating start to their title defence for the champions, who lost one and drew four of their first five matches, but they will now go to Chelmsford next week to take on early Division One pace-setters Essex with renewed belief that this result will kick-start their four-day campaign.
This was also a fourth successive championship win for Middlesex against Yorkshire at Lord’s, following last September’s epic in which they clinched the title with Roland-Jones finishing the match with a hat-trick.
Here the strapping 29-year-old grabbed the key wicket of Yorkshire captain Gary Ballance with the second ball after lunch, a beauty which moved up the Lord’s slope to take a thin edge through to keeper John Simpson, after earlier removing opener Alex Lees with another fine ball delivered from the Pavilion End in his opening spell.
Lees fell for 14 as Yorkshire lost their first three wickets in just seven balls, with Murtagh striking twice in four balls in his fourth over to send back Adam Lyth for 2 and Harry Brook for a third-ball duck. It was in his fourth over that Roland-Jones then had Lees smartly held by Rayner at second slip from a ball angled across the left-hander.