Middlesex grateful for James Franklin’s century against Worcestershire

• Middlesex 289-7 v WorcestershireRight now the only thing in cricket more fashionable than a New Zealander is a New Zealander captain. Thus it was fitting to see James Franklin help Middlesex recover after a disastrous start in which four wickets fell in the first 80 minutes, even if he did become Jack Shantry’s fourth victim in the day’s final over.Middlesex could barely have started worse. They lost one former England opener, Sam Robson, caught at third slip, before the game’s stated