Glamorgan versus Essex: Vitality Blast Twenty20

I’m back in Cardiff for a few days sorting out some logistics, and also to make the most of what remains on my season ticket for Glamorgan cricket club, where I spent this evening.

While my late supper warms in the oven I just have time to post a quick item about this evening’s events at Sophia Gardens.

I don’t normally do selfies unless they’re of other people but I’m posting the above one because it made it via Twitter onto the big screen during the match. Fame at last!

Essex won the toss and out Glamorgan into bat. Glamorgan got off to a poor start, losing both openers cheaply. That brought Colin Ingram to the crease and the scoring accelerated, especially when he took apart the hapless Quinn for 30 off one over.

Glamorgan reached 110 for 3 off 11 overs, of which Ingram had scored 85, but they then faltered against good bowling. Ingram fell with the score on 135 for 7, at the start of the 17th over. Essex were on top.

Graham Wagg and Ruaidhri Smith then launched a stunning counter-attack and in the blink of an eye and a flurry of boundaries, Glamorgan were suddenly 198 for 7 off their 20 overs.

It was a good score in the end, but Essex started well with the bat and Glamorgan’s bowlers at first struggled to contain them. Gradually however Glamorgan began to exert some control. Wagg was outstanding in the crucial middle overs.

Pressure built, some wickets fell, but Essex didn’t collapse and kept more or less in touch with wickets in hand and the experienced Bopara at the crease and looking in good form.

The crowd waited anxiously for the climax. Essex needed 48 off the last 3 overs. Then 32 off 2. Then, after an excellent penultimate over from Wagg, 24 from the last. With Ravi Bopara on strike.

Michael Hogan ran into bowl. His first two balls conceded two fours, one a very difficult dropped catch that might have gone for six if the fielder hadn’t got a hand to it. Now it was 16 off 4 balls. The next ball was skied but fell safe for 2 runs. That meant 14 from 3; at least one six needed. Hogan bowled and Bopara obliged, slogging one into the Grandstand.

Eight now needed off two balls. Possible. Nerves jangling around the ground, Hogan bowled again, a very good one. Bopara was beaten and the ball went through to the keeper. A dot ball. A huge cheer went up from the crowd. That was effectively that. An inconsequential single off the last ball meant that Glamorgan won by six runs.

That makes it four wins out of four for Glamorgan, who go 3rd in the table. They now have a good chance of a semifinal place that looked beyond their reach four games ago. Poor old Essex are bottom of the table, with only one win from ten matches.

Walking home just know it occurred to me that as well as ones for fours and sixes they should give out cards to wave when a dot ball is bowled. It’s often those that win matches!

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Welcome Back To Sophia Gardens

As a member of Glamorgan County Cricket Club I today received some important news by email.

It seems that at the end of this month (ie today), the sponsorship deal with an electricity company that involved the cricket ground in Cardiff being called the SSE SWALEC Stadium lapses.

From tomorrow, the First of May, therefore, the ground will be known by the far more attractive name of Sophia Gardens Cardiff. That also happens to be the name by which it was known from 1967 to 2007…

I have to admit that I always struggled to bring myself to call it the SSE SWALEC Stadium, so I’m glad that I no longer have to try!

And while we’re on about gardens here is a picture of some flowers I saw in Cathays Park on my way to work this morning.

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Winning start to the season for Glamorgan

Well, I’m still in the office after a very busy afternoon of pre-examination stuff. It’s raining very heavily outside so I thought I’d dash off a post while I hope for the deluge to abate.

I was busy yesterday afternoon too, but during the meeting I was at I kept a tab on my web browser open to follow the final afternoon of Glamorgan’s first County Championship match of the season against Gloucestershire, over the River Severn in Bristol. When I got back to the office I continued to follow on the Radio. It turned out to be quite an exciting finish.

Having bowled out Gloucestershire for 236 in the first innings and scored 522 for 9 declared in reply, Glamorgan then had Gloucestershire in deep trouble at 133 for 5 going into the final day. An innings victory for Glamorgan looked a racing certainty but Gloucestershire’s lower-order played very well indeed, not only defending capably but scoring runs reasonably quickly (no doubt against very attacking fields); for the first three days the scoring rate was less than three an over, but that’s pretty typical for the county championship. When Gloucestershire were finally all out they had reached 372, requiring Glamorgan to bat again.

The target of 83 to win off 21 overs looks on paper to have been easy, but the weather was drawing in and there was no chance of all 21 overs actually being bowled. In the gathering gloom, Glamorgan’s batsmen decided to come out with all guns blazing to try to rattle the runs off before bad light stopped play. Selman and Murphy put on an opening partnership of 50 off just 7 overs, but then a flurry of wickets fell and suddenly it was 67 for 4. Eventually, though, Glamorgan recovered their composure and Aneurin Donald finished the game by hitting Worrall for six. Glamorgan won by six wickets.

Anyway, that was a nice start to the County Championship season for Glamorgan – they didn’t play last weekend, which was the first round of matches for most other clubs. Their next game is away to Middlesex (at Lord’s). I would like to have gone to at least one day of that, but unfortunately I’m busy this weekend with other things. Shaun Marsh and David Lloyd both scored centuries in his match, and Marchant de Lange took five wickets in the first innings as well as scoring 50 not out. Hopefully they will take strength from that performance and improve their County Championship position compared to last year.

Now, it’s stopped raining so I can go home. Goodnight all!

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Sports Round-up

Feeling a bit under the weather – and mindful that I have to get the early flight back to Cardiff tomorrow morning – I’ve been taking it easy today. I did, however, venture forth to the local pub in Maynooth (which is approximately fifty yards from my flat) after lunch to have a pint and watch the second half of Newcastle Utd against Arsenal in the Premiership League. I’m glad I did, as Newcastle won 2-1, which cheered me up considerably.

After four consecutive wins Newcastle have now got 41 points from 33 games and are in tenth place. Though relegation is still mathematically possible, that would require a very improbable sequence of results.

Even the bottom club, West Bromwich Albion, still have a chance of avoiding relegation. They even managed to beat Manchester Utd today, but it still looks most probable that they, Stoke City and Southampton will be in the Championship next year.

Manchester United’s defeat later this afternoon hands the Premiership title to their Midlands rivals Manchester City. Congratulations to City. They’ve clearly been the best team all season, a little end-of-term wobble notwithstanding.

Wolverhampton Wanderers gained promotion yesterday, but the second automatic spot is yet to be decided. Cardiff City looked to have blown it in recent matches, but had a good win yesterday against Midlands side Norwich City while a last-gasp goal from Brentford meant Fulham only drew. With a game in hand, the Bluebirds are in a strong position but you never know.

At the other end of the Championship lies Sunderland, but even they have a (remote) chance of avoiding relegation.

Anyway, as always, the last handful of matches of the football season coincides with the start of the cricket season. The County Championship started on Friday but many games were badly affected by the weather. Where play was possible, conditions favoured bowling rather than batting: Kent, for example, were bowled out for 64 in their first innings against Gloucestershire..

Glamorgan have been playing a three-day match against a Cardiff MCCU team. The students had Glamorgan in trouble at 28-3 chasing their first innings 249 but the professionals recovered to reach 217-5 at yesterday’s close. No play was possible today because of rain so the match ended in a draw.

Hopefully, when teaching and exam marking are finished in both Maynooth and Cardiff, I’ll be able to make use of my season ticket for some of Glamorgan’s matches at the SSE SWALEC Stadium in Sophia Gardens. The Welsh weather may, of course, have something to say about that!

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Anyone for Cricket?

Going through the mail that arrived during the ten days or so I’ve been in Ireland, and with the snow steadily descending outside my window, I find the handy booklet containing this year’s fixtures for Glamorgan County Cricket Club has arrived at last.

Glamorgan’s first County Championship match starts on April 20th, just a month away, but their first home game isn’t until May (against Kent) . Hopefully the snow will have melted by then!

I now have a bit of planning to do in order to fit in as much cricket as I can this summer in between trips to and from Ireland as well as conferences and other things…

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Natwest T20 Blast Quarter Final: Glamorgan v Leicestershire

Last night I went to the Natwest T20 Blast Quarter Final match between Glamorgan and Leicestershire at the SSE Swalec Stadium in Cardiff. By beating Middlesex last week, Glamorgan finished top of the `South’ Group hence the home tie against Leicestershire who finished fourth in the North Midlands Group. In contrast to most of the rest of the competition, we had good weather: there was a bit of cloud, but it was warm and as we settled into our seats we were confident of a full match.

The game was preceded by a moving tribute to the late Don Shepherd, who died last week shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday. It’s a shame he wasn’t around to experience what turned out to be a fine evening for Glamorgan cricket.

Leicestershire won the toss and decided to bat first. They got off to a flying start and although Cameron Delport and Luke Ronchi were both clean bowled by excellent deliveries (the former a superb yorker from Marchant De Lange), Leicestershire emerged from the six overs of Powerplay on 57 for 2. A big score looked likely.

The trajectory of the match thereafter was defined by a really excellent bowling and fielding display from Glamorgan, to such an extent that the next ten overs for Leicestershire produced just 43 runs for the loss of seven wickets. Their last wicket fell in the last over, by which time they had accumulated only 123 runs.

The pick of the Glamorgan bowlers was Craig Meschede who bowled at a sharpish fast-medium, but with the wicket-keeper standing up to the stumps to frustrate the batsmen who clearly wanted to come down the wicket to make use of the short straight boundaries. He also bowled a considerable number of slower balls and cutters, but despite these variations he kept to a very accurate line. He finished with figures of 3 for 17 off his four overs, which is really excellent for this format. At the other end for much of the time, Colin Ingram bowled his leg breaks with similar accuracy and got quite a few to turn; he took the wicket of Wells with one that turned enough to take the leading edge, resulting in a simple caught-and-bowled. Ingram finished with 1-19; both he and Meschede bowled 12 dot balls in their four-over spells. All this was backed up by sharp fielding and good catching.

The target of 124 never looked like being enough, although there was nervousness around the ground when Aneurin Donald holed out to mid off early on after which Glamorgan’s batsmen took some time to get the scoreboard moving. But that was just Rudolph and Ingram being sensible. They had no need to rush with such a modest score to chase. Suddenly Ingram sprang into life and took the bull by the horns. The scoring accelerated with a flurry of boundaries, the tension melted away and the Glamorgan supporters starting singing. In all, Ingram clubbed five huge sixes including one that went so high I lost it in the floodlights and feared it might land on my head. It actually landed in the crowd a few yards away but didn’t cause any injury. Ingram is an impressive player when he gets doing – he hits the ball very hard but it looks so effortless, and he’s as skilled with the rapier as with the bludgeon: many deft flicks and cuts were included in his innings.

Ingram was in no mood to hang about once he’d got his eye in. At the end of the 13th over, Glamorgan were 104 for 1. The next five balls went for 6-6-4-2-4 and that was that. Glamorgan finished 126 for 1, winning by nine wickets. Ingram finished on 70 not out having overtaken Jacques Rudolph and left him stranded four short of a fifty. Together with his excellent bowling, his batting amply justified the Man of the Match award. It had been a one-sided contest, but in a way that I found entirely satisfactory. Well played Glamorgan, and commiserations to the Leicestershire fans who played their part in creating a great atmosphere at Sophia Gardens.

So there we are. For the first time since 2004, Glamorgan have qualified for the semi-finals of the Twenty20 competition, where they join Hampshire (who thrashed Derbyshire on Tuesday night); the two remaining quarter-finals are played tonight and tomorrow. Both semi-finals and the final are played on Saturday September 2nd at Edgbaston. David Miller, who had flown back for this match having played in South Africa the day before, was scheduled to bat at No. 4 last night but wasn’t needed. He may well get a game on Finals Day!

UPDATE: Here’s a short video of the highlights of the match! De Lange’s brilliant yorker is about 19s in…

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