Cricket: Murtagh Keeps Notts in Line

It is too soon to say whether Ed Smith will make Middlesex a better side but the new captain has already made them a noisier one. Not a ball did they bowl yesterday that wasn't preceded by a chorus of encouragement from the slips and barely one that wasn't followed by applause. Given that many of those deliveries were two feet wide of the stumps, their determination to stay positive was admirable.

When Smith's seamers did find a good line and length the wicket gave them enough help to make batting hard work. With heavy cloud encouraging swing, four wickets in 59 overs before the weather closed in was a disappointing return.

It had looked a good toss to win when Nottinghamshire's stand-in captain Dave Hussey decided to bat. At that stage the cloud was thin and high and Tim Murtagh, Alan Richardson and Richard Johnson rarely made Jason Gallian and Bilal Shafayat play at more than three balls an over.

Johnson's radar was particularly awry but Gallian pushed at a delivery he could safely have ignored and gave a thin edge behind. Mark Wagh soon followed, a Murtagh delivery he was trying to leave feathering his bat on its way through to David Nash, but Shafayat and Hussey added 79 before Murtagh found the right length and line and was rewarded with two wickets in three balls, Hussey edging to Andrew Strauss at second slip, Samit Patel caught behind off another that moved away.