Warwickshire left frustrated by Stevie Eskinazi
Stevie Eskinazi’s career-best 178 not out underpinned a solid day’s work for Middlesex against Warwickshire in their County Championship Division One clash at Edgbaston.
In reply to the home side’s 334 all out, Middlesex closed the second day on 302-6 and within sight of a first-innings lead – a position they owe almost exclusively to Eskinazi.
The team’s leading championship run scorer this season struck 24 fours and three sixes in his 240-ball innings, with Middlesex’s next-best score being the 39 made by captain Dawid Malan.
It was a far from faultless innings from the 23-year-old.
Fortunate not to perish to the second ball he faced, Eskinazi played and missed at plenty and edged plenty more, but he also unfurled some superb shots, with his straight driving a particular treat.
All results remain possible. Whether either of these confidence-shorn sides can summon the power to force victory remains to be seen, but Eskinazi’s innings has at least left champions Middlesex with a chance of cooking up a win.
Warwickshire resumed the second morning on 302-7 and started crisply as Keith Barker and Jeetan Patel took the score to 330.
But Tim Murtagh’s brilliant return catch to dismiss Barker for 49 triggered the loss of the last three wickets for four runs in 25 balls.
