Morning Update

After the thrills and spills of the Vitality T20 Blast, it’s back to red-ball action for Glamorgan’s cricketers as they meet the county who defeated them by ten wickets in the first week of April. This was the first of five victories for the East Midlands side during the opening block of seven games in the competition, and which has seen the Foxes secure a commanding lead at the top of the Division Two table. Glamorgan are 42 points behind Leicestershire in third place in the table after posting three successive victories – a feat they last achieved in 2015 – with each success, against Kent, Northamptonshire and Middlesex, coming with a day to spare during May as they rocketed up the table. (writes Andrew Hignell)

Compared with the team which defeated Middlesex, Ben Kellaway and Colin Ingram returned to the Welsh county’s batting line-up, whilst Mason Crane and Ned Leonard were added to their bowling unit as four changes were made to the Glamorgan team, with Andy Gorvin and Tom Bevan omitted from the squad announced ahead of the game.

Overnight there had been the sad news of the passing of Syd Lawrence, the former Gloucestershire and England fast bowler, so a minute’s silence was observed before the start of play, whilst all of the players and umpires wore black armbands After Sam Northeast had won the toss, Glamorgan opted to bat first with Asa Tribe striking the first boundary as he cover-drove Logan van Beek.

The Jersey international followed this by clipping Chris Wright through mid-wicket as well as glancing van Beek to the ropes at fine-leg and mid-wicket, followed by a firmly-struck drive through mid-off against Wright. Tribe also greeted the introduction of Ben Green into the attack by clipping three of his first four deliveries to the ropes at mid-wicket. ul Hassan then found the ropes as he square-drove van Beek with Tribe also on-driving Tom Scriven.

ul Hassan also cover drove Scriven before nurdling him through the gully for another boundary, followed by a deft leg-glance when Sam Wood entered the attack at the Bennett End. Tribe also off-drove the young bowler en route to completing his fifty from 69 balls. Their opening stand had reached 98 when Wright returned at the Pavilion and made the breakthrough as ul Hassan got an edge to a leg glance and was caught by a tumbling Peter Handscomb behind the stumps.

Sam Northeast duly joined Tribe shortly before lunch and helped guide his side through to the interval without further alarm.