Glamorgan return to action in the LV=Insurance County Championship on Sunday at the Riverside ground in Chester-le-Street as they meet Durham in a four-day contest scheduled to start at 1100 on Sunday, 11 June. (writes Andrew Hignell)
The past three weeks has seen the Welsh county’s cricketers involved in white-ball cricket in the Vitality Blast but, like the other counties, they now take a breather from T20 to take part in their seventh match in the four-day competition. Glamorgan are in fourth place in the Division Two table, level on 66 points with Worcestershire, but the West Midlands team are ahead of the Welsh county by virtue of having won two matches, compared with Glamorgan’s sole victory - ironically against Worcestershire at Cardiff by ten wickets. In contrast, Durham have so far completed four victories and are on top of the table with 105 points.
The two teams met earlier in the season with rain affecting the contest at Cardiff. Ben Raine also had his say with the ball as despite a century from Kiran Carlson, Glamorgan followed-on, before David Lloyd and Billy Root saw their side to the safety of a draw.
Glamorgan have not been victorious at Chester-le-Street since 2004 and have lost three of their last four visits to the Riverside ground. Last summer, they were beaten by 58 runs, after a match-winning performance by Matty Potts, who is now in England’s squad for the opening Ashes Test. Glamorgan were also soundly beaten at Chester-le-Street in 2021 by an innings and 42 runs. The contest in 2019 saw just 86.4 overs of play across the four days before the contest was abandoned as a soggy draw shortly before 9am on the final morning.
Glamorgan also lost by nine wickets when they visited Durham’s headquarters at Chester-le-Street in 2017 which had been their first visit to the ground since May 2004. In that game nineteen years ago, Glamorgan emphatically won by 201 runs with Michael Powell making 124, whilst David Harrison and Alex Wharf each claimed five-wicket hauls as Glamorgan eased to victory inside three days.
This was the third victory in successive seasons for the Glamorgan side on Durham soil having also won in September 2003 at Chester-le-Street by 369 runs, and again in 2002 by ten wickets. Michael Kasprowicz was the star of both victories, with the Australian claiming 9/45 in the match in 2003 after Mark Wallace, Michael Powell and Matthew Maynard had each made hundreds.