Title triumph is still fresh in the mind but this year is all that matters now...
Will Macpherson speaks to the hero of last year as Toby Roland-Jones aims to make it two titles in a row with Middlesex
As the County Championship pricked the national consciousness with that thrilling finale on a hazy September Friday, there could have been no more appropriate protagonist than the indefatigable Middlesex seamer Toby Roland-Jones, he of the longest run-up in the land, the dashing stroke play and allround excellence. Roland-Jones might just be the best uncapped redball cricketer on the circuit (and one of the most improved, too), and the sight of him wheeling away, arms spread like an aeroplane having rocked Ryan Sidebottom’s leg-stump back to unwittingly complete a title-sealing hat-trick seemed a fitting end to a fine season. Since, Roland-Jones has been a busy boy. He’s spent months with the England Lions, captaining them in the first-class match against Afghanistan before Christmas, and excelling in Sri Lanka and for the South in Dubai. The selectors have been impressed and are all too aware that his heavy ball and back-of-a-length nagging would suit Australian pitches to a tee (remember another latebloomer, Chris Tremlett); Roland-Jones might not be the best uncapped player for long. Recognising his importance to their first title defence in 23 year and this season to his own career, Middlesex gave Roland-Jones a few days off during their remarkable Champion County win over the MCC. This, after all, has been a tough, taxing winter. “I have really enjoyed this winter,” Roland-Jones reflects. “Certainly the training camps before Christmas were good, training at great intensity, not quite match level but very high and access to great facilities. It’s good to improve in the company of a very strong squad. The playing tours were good too, Sri Lanka was very tough, and high pressure in alien conditions. “North-South was great too, the organisers will be delighted with that. It’s nice after all that’s happened, I’m 29 now, to still have a chance of impressing. Playing for the Lions means you rock up in Dubai in March with the selectors watching and it does add spice for you, which is what you want.” His own contribution will live long in the memories of all those watching, listening and at Lord’s, but what are his memories of that super September day?
“They are still fresh,” he laughs. “After all the celebrating it’s nice to maintain all the memories. It was a very special day, but I had no idea that I had taken a hattrick because of the swap of overs. It is surreal. A strange feeling that I’ll always be that guy who took a hat-trick to win the title. Getting older, when I eventually leave the game, that’s something I’ll always have. I imagine it’ll be the fondest memory I take from the game.
“The hard thing actually will be not dwelling on it this season. For myself and for the club, there is so much more to achieve. It could be a bit unhealthy to dwell too much on the past!”
It was not, of course, just on the final day of last season that Roland-Jones was so brilliant. After being considered not good enough on trial as a teenager at Surrey, he has steadily improved in all three facets and formats of the game, becoming a better player with each passing season. That culminated in 54 wickets at 28, as well as a series of vital – and always swashbuckling – contributions with the bat, not least in the reverse fixture against Yorkshire at Scarborough when his unbeaten 79 turned the game on its head and set up a remarkable win.
The only game he missed all season came in another extraordinary win, against Somerset in Taunton, when he was called up by England to face Pakistan, only to miss the XI. Those three wins, all against their nearest rivals, showed how Middlesex won the title the hard way, against the odds and potted it with extraordinary moments, too. Halfway through the season they had already lost 800 overs to bad weather and had to contend with pitches at Lord’s – where they drew their first five games on extraordinary surfaces. It was a new experience for almost every member of Middlesex’s squad, and the burning question is can they do it again?
“We can do, definitely,” he says. “We carried a quiet confidence last year that we could do it, and that carried us over the line. At all the key moments that came to light. As long as we can maintain that and as key players we need to front up with runs and big wicket hauls. Our biggest challenge is definitely remembering to put last season to the back of our mind and go again. The second one is harder. This is a fresh start, it really does count for nothing right now for this season. We will be judged on what is ahead and not behind us.”
Surely, though, the dizzying heights of 2016 cannot be topped in terms of style? “We would take any kind of title win! The ideal situation would be to quietly go about our business and win with a game to spare, no stress, no drama! That would be just as good, last year is not something we are looking to recreate even if it was the greatest day.”
After being considered not good enough on trial as a teenager at Surrey, he has steadily improved in all three facets and formats of the game