Head Coach Robert Croft has named a 13-man squad for tomorrow’s Specsavers County Championship match against local rivals Gloucestershire in the final home match of the season.
Aneurin Donald and Connor Brown, two young Welshmen, are included with Brown, who is likely to open the batting instead of Jacques Rudolph, becoming the second player after wicketkeeper Tom Cullen to make his championship debut after playing for the successful Cardiff MCCU team for the past two years. Both batsmen are also products of the Glamorgan Academy.
Another young player to looking to make his mark in the first team is all-rounder Ruaidhri Smith. After picking up and injury at the beginning of the year, Smith has been in fine form for the seconds, but his only appearance in the Specsavers County Championship this year came at Colwyn Bay where he took five wickets in Glamorgan’s narrow one-wicket defeat to Sussex.
Despite being twelfth man for Glamorgan’s next two County Championship matches, Smith is happy with his form going into the match and is relishing the possibility of playing in the first team again.
“I was quite happy with my performance at Colwyn Bay and overall, I was really pleased with how the ball came out and how I bowled,” said Smith.
“I’ve played a lot of second team cricket this year and managed to get a lot of overs in because the last few seasons I’ve struggled with injuries so it’s been nice to get most of the season done and I hope to finish the next couple of weeks strongly.”
Glamorgan fell to a disappointing 10-wicket loss within two days against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham earlier in the season but are eager to put in an improved performance this time around, according to Smith.
“I don’t think anyone was particularly pleased with their performance up in Cheltenham so everyone is keen to avenge that defeat and finish strongly in the County Championship.”
Glamorgan squad to face Gloucestershire: Selman, Brown, Ingram, Murphy, Carlson, Donald, Cooke, Salter, Meschede, Smith, MDL, Carey, Hogan (c)