County Championship: Leus Du Plooy puts Middlesex on top against Gloucestershire

Du Plooy chose to bat on winning the final toss of the campaign and the hosts made a quick start thanks to some wayward offerings from Gloucestershire’s new-ball attack.

It was a similarly innocuous delivery from Dale which brought the breakthrough, a leg-stump half-volley which Sam Robson sent straight to square leg.

If that was fortuitous, Dale produced a useful fourth stump ball in his next over that Josh De Caires nicked through to wicketkeeper James Bracey.

It would be the last success for some time as the bowlers erred in line and length, and du Plooy and Hollman feasted accordingly.

Three Hollman fours in one Matt Taylor over raised the 50, while Du Plooy was quickly into stride, driving confidently as he moved to his half-century from 56 balls shortly before lunch.

The hundred partnership came up in the first over following the resumption and while Dale was finding hints of both swing and seam from the Nursery End, the pair carried the score to 161-2 relatively untroubled.

It took a piece of brilliance from Bracey – who claimed a Gloucestershire record 11 victims against Middlesex in the corresponding fixture last season – to break the stand, grabbing a ball that was dying off the inside edge of Hollman’s bat, giving Dale a third wicket.

Higgins followed to his next ball, harshly adjudged lbw to one heading over the top, but Geddes joined his skipper in the middle as the hosts quickly regained the upper hand.

Geddes, impressive in his first season in Middlesex colours, employed the pull shot to great effect, sending a short one from Dale into the Grandstand, before a square drive took Du Plooy to a chanceless century.

Van Buuren put the breaks on either side of tea and was rewarded with the breakthrough when Geddes was pinned in front.

Du Plooy, however, glided his way past 150 as Cracknell proved a valuable ally, clearing the ropes with a thunderous pull shot and unfurling some pleasing cover drives in becoming the fourth home batter to pass 50 in the late autumn sunshine.

Match report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay