After scoring a century at St Helen's last year against Derbyshire, young batsman Kiran Carlson has some fond memories of playing in Swansea and is looking forward to another special fixture at the famous ground.
"Playing at St. Helens is obviously very special, especially as a Welshman playing for Glamorgan," said Carlson. "The place is steeped in the clubs history and its always nice to go to different grounds in Wales, and the fans are so great down in Swansea. Its one of the standout fixtures of the year no doubt.
"It holds some very fond memories for me after last years performance. It was even more pleasing as we were in a difficult position after the first couple of days where Derbyshire put us under a lot of pressure and they played really well, especially as the it was one of those pitches where you always thought that there could be a ball with your name on it. They also had some quality bowlers on show in Ravi Rampaul and Duane Olivier.
Going out for that second innings and getting the best seat in the house to watch a quality player like Uzzy (Khawaja) go about his work was a great experience. Having somebody of his quality out there with you really helps calm any nerves that you have, and on top of being a great player he is an even better bloke.
To bat like that was extremely pleasing, especially as I hadn’t been in the best of form up to that point. To get a few out of the middle early on really settled me down and then with Uzzy belting them at the other end I could just go about my work without having to worry about how quickly I needed to score, or how far behind them we were.
To come out on the fourth morning and set the tone for the day like we did was one of the best feelings I’ve had in my career so far. We had no idea about the record partnership, we just wanted to score as quickly as we possibly could to try and set up something for the bowlers to work with, which we managed to do.
For the bowlers to bowl as well as they did, but us to not quite get there was disappointing, but it shows again how exciting games at St. Helen’s always are. Its certainly a fixture that we look forward to every year and to have Derbyshire there again this year, well lets just hope we can have a similar game but we get over the line this time.