After their excellent 15-run victory over Gloucestershire at Bristol on Saturday, the Birmingham Bears will be Glamorgan’s next opponents at Cardiff in the Vitality Blast as the West Country side stage their next T20 game at Sophia Gardens on Sunday 30 August, with the game getting underway at 2.30pm. (writes Andrew Hignell)
The Bears were Glamorgan’s opponents in September 2017 when the two sides met in the opening semi-final on Finals Day at Edgbaston. Glamorgan lost on that occasion but they were victorious by eight wickets the most recent time Glamorgan met the Warwickshire team at Rugby School on 6 July 2013.
Three days before the two teams had met under the floodlights at Cardiff with Glamorgan winning a low-scoring contest by four wickets. After early inroads by Alex Jones and Michael Hogan, Graham Wagg claimed 3/24 with the feisty all-rounder cleverly varying his pace and Inducing a series of miscued strokes. After some good catches in the deep and, an arrow-like throw from Chris Cooke at deep extra cover to run out Ateeq Javid, Glamorgan were left with the task of making 119.
Their quest suffered a couple of early blows, before Cooke and Marcus North steadied the ship but when the latter was removed by Jeetan Patel with 23 needed from 18 balls, it seemed that the Bears had taken the upper hand. But up stepped another Kiwi, in the form of Nathan McCullum, who to the delight of the home crowd, reverse-swept his first ball for four before harpooning Patel for a massive six into the Grandstand. His aggression meant that just four were needed off the final over, but it took the New Zealander only one more ball to settle the match, as he lustily deposited Chris Wright back over his head for another six into the River Stand.
Glamorgan had also been victorious in 2012 when the two teams met at Cardiff in a game initially trimmed to 18 overs before further storms after 8 overs of the Glamorgan innings with lusty boundaries by Jim Allenby and Shaun Marsh taking Glamorgan ahead of the par score. This five-run victory, under the Duckworth-Lewis Method over the Bears was also the first time since their quarter-final encounter at the Sophia Gardens ground in July 2004 that Glamorgan had recorded a win against the Birmingham-based team at their home in 20 overs cricket with a stand of 118 for the third wicket between Matthew Elliott and David Hemp laying the foundations for an eight-wicket victory which clinched a place for the Welsh county at Finals Day.