Gloucs forced to follow on against Middlesex

Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, Lord's (day three) Middlesex 445-9 dec: Du Plooy 182, Cracknell 97; Hammond 2-2 Gloucestershire 216: Hammond 77; Roland-Jones 5-37 & 120-3 (f/o): Phillips 45; Morgan 2-31 Gloucs (1 pt) trail Middlesex (7 pts) by 109 runs Match scorecard Toby Roland-Jones finished with a five-wicket return as Middlesex made Gloucestershire follow on at Lord's to boost their prospects of an opening-round win in the County Championship. The 38-year-old paceman, who ended last season as Division Two's second-highest wicket-taker with 45, completed his first stint of the new campaign with 5-37 to dismiss the visitors for 216 – a deficit of 229. Spinner Zafar Gohar backed Roland-Jones up with 3-47 against his former county, while young seamer Naavya Sharma took 2-39.

Ben Charlesworth and Joe Phillips provided resistance with a dogged partnership of 78 when Gloucestershire batted again but they closed on 120-3, still facing an uphill battle to avoid defeat on the fourth day. Having lost Ollie Price to the final ball of day two, Gloucestershire made a sedate start and registered just a solitary boundary during the opening half-hour, despite the short distance to the rope on the grandstand side. James Bracey was beginning to settle, sweeping and cutting fours off his former team-mate Gohar, but Roland-Jones tempted him to drive outside off stump and pick out the waiting gully fielder.

There was a similar fate for Miles Hammond, who had passed his half-century the previous evening and advanced to 77 before top-edging a pull off Roland-Jones, dropping his bat in sheer frustration as the ball sailed into the hands of midwicket. Craig Miles and Matt Taylor also perished, both attempting to hit Gohar over the top, while Graeme van Buuren displayed some grit in his knock of 26 before chopping the left-armer onto off stump. Middlesex were held up by last pair Will Williams and Gabe Bell, who pushed their side's total above 200 as they played out an extra half-hour at the end of the morning session without alarm.

However, it took just a single over after lunch for Sharma to wrap up the innings as Bell fended off a bouncer to short leg, the signal for Gloucestershire's openers to strap on their pads a second time. Before long, though, Cameron Bancroft was taking his pads off again, castled for a duck by a snorter from Sebastian Morgan that stayed low and clattered into the visiting captain's off stump. Charlesworth and Phillips adopted a patient approach, digging in and putting away the odd loose delivery as they chipped at the deficit despite tight spells from Roland-Jones and Ryan Higgins.