Middlesex part company with Stuart Law after three seasons

NICK FRIEND: Middlesex finished bottom of their County Championship group in the first half of this season, before ending the campaign as runners-up in Division three

Middlesex have parted company with head coach Stuart Law after three years at the helm despite a fourth still remaining on his contract.

The Australian, who previously worked with West Indies, oversaw a period of transition, with several young players coming through into Middlesex’s first team under his stewardship.

However, they have struggled since winning the County Championship in 2016, finishing third-bottom of the second tier in Law’s first season in charge, before finishing third in their Bob Willis Trophy group in 2020.

They were unable to build on that red-ball progress this summer, though, finishing marooned at the bottom of their group on the County Championship’s return, winning twice and losing seven times in their first 10 games.

Placed in Division Three through the second half of the four-day campaign, they rallied – winning four games in a row through September – before losing to Kent in their final game of the season to finish as runners-up.

A win would have given them the title, albeit not a trophy they would have set out to win in April, when they began the season with an accomplished performance over three days against Somerset, only to lose when well placed on the  fourth – a common theme in their 2021 struggles was an inability to ram home positions of strength. They twice lost – against Leicestershire and Kent – when defending fourth-innings targets upwards of 350.

“It is always sad when committed people leave the club and things do not work out as all parties would have hoped, and Stuart leaves Middlesex with our thanks and best wishes,” said chief executive Andrew Cornish, who explained that the decision had been taken on the back of an extensive review into results over the last three years.

“Our on-field performances have not been up to the standards we require. The review and the outcomes resulting from it have not been taken lightly, and the cricket committee will be actively involved in the search for a replacement head coach.”

^{Stuart Law was in charge at Middlesex for three seasons}

In white-ball cricket, armed with AB de Villiers as an overseas player in 2019, Middlesex reached the knockout stages of the T20 Blast – putting an end to a poor record in the competition – only to be well beaten by Nottinghamshire in a quarter-final at Trent Bridge.

They never scaled those heights again under Law, narrowly missing out on qualification in 2020 and finishing second-bottom in 2021.

They reached the quarter-finals of the Royal London Cup in 2019 as well, before losing to Lancashire at Lord’s, where through his tenure Middlesex’s batters often struggled. Only once in the 2021 County Championship did they score 300 on their home ground.

Following the end of this season, experienced seamers Steven Finn and James Harris both departed for new counties, while Nick Gubbins left for Hampshire midway through the campaign, with Mark Stoneman arriving as a replacement for him.

Amid a significant backroom restructure in July, Angus Fraser stepped down from his role as managing director of cricket, with Law reporting thereafter directly to chief executive, Cornish, and accountable to the club’s professional cricket committee, which is chaired by Richard Sykes, the board’s senior independent director. It was considered then that the change would either empower Law or make him more susceptible to this turn of events.

Tim Murtagh ended the season as club captain, with overseas player Peter Handscomb – a trusted lieutenant of Law – returning to Australia prematurely due to the early start of the Sheffield Shield. Pakistan seamer Shaheen Shah Afridi has also signed as an overseas player for 2022, joining a young squad featuring – in Blake Cullen, Ethan Bamber, Martin Andersson, Luke Hollman, Josh de Caires and Joe Cracknell – a youthful, homegrown core.

Bowling coach Alan Coleman will fill Law’s position on an interim basis until a new head coach is appointed.

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