Day three of the LV= County Championship match at the SWALEC Stadium ended with a positive declaration from Glamorgan captain Jacques Rudolph after wet weather had left the home team just over a 100 runs behind Derbyshire's first innings total, with a maximum of only three sessions remaining in the match.
Glamorgan were keen to bowl at the weakened Derbyshire batting line-up again, particularly in the damp conditions. Speaking to media after the game, Rudolph explained the decision to declare to try and set up the match on the final day:
It was a declaration about positive intent, said Jacques. We lost a lot of time in this game because of the rain (and) we had discussed it in our own camp at lunch-time. We felt we could get into them quickly and put them under pressure.
Rudolph added, The declaration was not about denying Derbyshire points. We are also missing out on batting points, but there was a bigger carrot and that was to try and bowl them out cheaply.
I can potentially understand why they weren't happy but from our point of view they have an inexperienced batting line-up and there would have been a lot of pressure on their senior player Wayne Madsen.
Derbyshire are missing three of their senior players and we had them 50 for six at one stage in the first innings.
We felt as if we wanted to get closer to their score but obviously it rained. We wanted to put them under some pressure because we know that potentially if they lose early wickets they have two bowlers batting at five or six.
Ultimately bad light prevented the players from resuming at the tail end of the day, after Rudolph threw the ball to Andy Carter to open the bowling.
I can give you my word the guys who would have opened the bowling tonight were Andy Carter and Michael Hogan.
There has been talk about the over rate and yes we are behind but naturally we would have tried to get over rate up.
If it would have been an issue about our over rate I would have opened the bowling with Dean Cosker and myself.
Should the weather improve, Derbyshire will begin their second innings 102 runs ahead of the home team.