Following the 2017 domestic fixture list announcement earlier, Andrew Hignell takes a look at some of the highlights in next summer’s calendar.
Day/night cricket
2017 will see the first-ever day-night Championship fixture in Wales as Glamorgan meet Derbyshire in a four-day contest at The SSE SWALEC starting on Monday, June 26th.
Given Glamorgan’s history in recent years, it is fitting that the innovation for day-night matches in the Championship should see a game allocated to Cardiff. On 27th April 1997 the one-day match between Glamorgan and Warwickshire was the first in the U.K. to be decided by the Duckworth-Lewis Method, whilst in July 2009, the Test Match at Cardiff between England and Australia was the first in the U.K. to see floodlights augment natural light.
The match at Cardiff between June 26th and June 29th will not be the first-ever Championship game to be staged under floodlights as in September 2011 Glamorgan took part in a pink-ball trial at Canterbury. In that game, Stewart Walters posted a fine century against the Kent attack to guide the Welsh county to an emphatic eight-wicket. Six years on, the match next season at The SSE SWALEC will see the Welsh county meet Derbyshire in an innovative round of Championship matches across the country which will be day-night encounters.
The earliest of early starts
The first-class season gets underway on March 28th with a three-day contest against Cardiff MCCU at The SSE SWALEC – this will be the earliest ever start to a domestic season with the previous earliest being the game in 2012 at The Parks against Oxford MCCU which began on March 31st. The match in 2017 will also become Glamorgan’s first-ever first-class game in the U.K. to be completed before the end of March.
Championship fixture headlines
The 2017 Championship schedule sees Glamorgan visit Cheltenham for their four-day contest with Gloucestershire at the historic College ground as part of the popular Festival, besides seeing the return of Durham to Division Two, with the Glamorgan players set to meet the north-east county for the first time since 2004, with games scheduled in 2017 at Swansea and Emirates Riverside in Chester-le-Street. Glamorgan last met Durham in Championship cricket in 2004 with the Welsh county winning at the Riverside ground by 201 runs.
Durham will also be the visitors at Swansea for the annual Championship fixture at the St. Helen’s ground with the contest starting on Friday, May 26th and continuing over the Whitsun Bank Holiday. During the previous week, Glamorgan will have welcomed Nottinghamshire to their headquarters in Cardiff for the first four-day game between the two counties since 2007.
The annual Championship fixture at Colwyn Bay starts on Bank Holiday Monday, August 28th with Sussex visiting the Rhos-on-Sea ground for the first time since 2000 and the game when they invited Glamorgan to bat first, with the Welsh county responding with a record-breaking total of 718-3dec as Steve James became the first – and so far – only Glamorgan batsman to score a triple-hundred as he posted an unbeaten 309*.
T20 in the summer holidays
The T20 campaign kicks off on Friday July 7th with the visit of Hampshire to The SSE SWALEC. Two days later, Glamorgan will visit the picturesque ground at Arundel for the first–ever time in the Welsh club’s history as they meet Sussex on Sunday, July 9th. Glamorgan have previously staged red and white ball matches at Hove, Hastings, Horsham, Eastbourne, Chichester and Worthing, but 2017 will see them play for the first-ever time at the picturesque ground in the shadow of Arundel Castle.
There are a further six home and away fixtures, three on Friday nights in Cardiff, along with games on a Saturday and Sunday. The T20 Blast tournament will dominate the schedule from July into August in a block of fixtures – a major shift in emphasis for the competition, meaning the teams will play their 14 qualifying matches in a concentrated period in high summer rather than spread over three months as previously. Glamorgan will be hoping to go at least one better than last season and reach finals day which will again be staged at Edgbaston in early September.
Royal London One Day Cup
As far as the 50 overs competition is concerned, the games in the Royal London One-Day Cup will commence on Thursday, April 27th as Glamorgan travel to Bristol to meet Gloucestershire. A further seven contests follow during the following three weeks, with Glamorgan’s final group game taking place at Swansea on Sunday, May 14th.
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