AFTER losing their opening three games of the season, Middlesex will be enjoying the hitherto elusive feeling of ascendancy. Another very good Lord’s batting pitch, not to mention an uncertain forecast, will require a special effort from their bowlers to take 20 Warwickshire wickets, but the home attack has already looked much more menacing.

Even more pleasing for Middlesex than their first full set of batting bonus points this season was the excellent spell bowled by Chad Keegan after tea. This was his maiden first-class appearance since last May, a serious back injury having incapacitated him, but skipping in with coltish enthusiasm, he rediscovered his old verve to claim wickets in his second, fifth and sixth overs.

The long locks and accompanying Alice band have gone, but the nip, late movement and persistence remain.

Warwickshire’s batsmen have gorged themselves at headquarters in recent years, Nick Knight and Mark Wagh each having made triple hundreds here. If Keegan was lucky to remove Knight — “strangling” him down the leg side — he thoroughly deserved Wagh’s wicket.

In what was his first match since April last year after a knee cartilage injury, Wagh had already been dropped at fourth slip off Keegan when he was confounded by a superb leg-cutter that hit his off stump.

Keegan was regularly beating the bat, but it was with a ball that nipped back up the slope that he removed Ian Bell. The England discard perhaps should have been forward rather than back, but it was still high-class pace bowling of the type that Middlesex have been missing so far this season.

Warwickshire bowled better yesterday than on the first day but their lack of penetration must be a concern to Mark Greatbatch, their coach. Not even the addition of Daniel Vettori, his fellow New Zealander, to the attack made much difference. The world’s leading left-arm spinner, who was making his county debut, took 13 overs to bowl a maiden and went wicketless.

Vettori will doubtless have better days, but the high number of overs he is sure to bowl will mean less opportunity for Alex Loudon to develop his off-breaks and doosra. It is a state of affairs with which the England selectors are not slow to express their dissatisfaction.

Loudon bowled only 12 of the 139.3 overs that the Middlesex innings lasted. He was slogged by the tailenders towards the end of it but should have had Jamie Dalrymple caught at mid-off on 45, Heath Streak dropping the chance.

Dalrymple and Ed Smith took advantage to put on 124 in 37 overs for the fourth wicket before the former England batsman fell for 166, a Middlesex best that was compiled in exactly six hours with 21 fours. For the bowler, it was also an auspicious dismissal, this being Dougie Brown’s 500th first-class wicket for Warwickshire. He becomes the 20th player to reach that milestone for the county.

Smith went quickly to the second new ball, as did Scott Styris when he edged a good one from Streak to first slip. When, moments later, Dalrymple was sixth out at 380, Warwickshire were momentarily back in the game.

Middlesex’s lower order, led by Nick Compton, who drove attractively, nevertheless ensured that they did not waste the good position the top order had bestowed on them. When Bell dismissed both Compton and the plucky Ben Scott, Keegan swung the bat effectively.

The 26-year old Johannesburg-born six-footer had the benefit of warm sunshine on his back for his long-awaited first spell back. In the space of one joyous hour for him, the memories of a frustrating 2005 must have slipped pleasingly away.

Chris Silverwood bowled quickly from the other end, and suddenly batting was a real challenge.