It's the biggest domestic match of the summer, so far, for Glamorgan as they meet Gloucestershire in the final group game in the NatWest T20 Blast in a contest on Friday, July 25th at the SWALEC Stadium which is scheduled to start at 5.30pm (Gates open at 4pm) and where victory for the Welsh county would clinch a quarter-final spot in the competition for the first time since 2008, with the Lancashire Lightning as their opponents at Old Trafford.
Match Preview
Last Friday at the SWALEC Stadium was something of a bitter-sweet evening for Glamorgan as they lost by seven wickets to the Essex Eagles, but elsewhere the results went in the favour of the Welsh county as Somerset were defeated by the Kent Spitfires in a weather-affected contest at Canterbury, whilst Luke Wright's audacious hundred for the Sussex Sharks could not prevent a Hampshire victory at the Ageas Bowl.
All of this left Glamorgan in fourth place in the table on 13 points, two points ahead of both Somerset and the Kent Spitfires who each have inferior run rates to Jim Allenby's team with just one match to play. Two points for a victory, or one point for a tie or a no-result would guarantee Glamorgan a place in the last eight of the competition for the first time in six years.
A very narrow defeat against Gloucestershire might also be enough for Glamorgan to progress to the last eight of the competition providing that Somerset and the Kent Spitfires win and do not improve their net run rates. At the present time, the Welsh county's net run rate is -0.169 compared with Somerset's -0.218 and the Spitfires' rate of -0.336.
If Glamorgan secure a place in the last eight, it will be for only the third time in their history, having previously beaten the Warwickshire Bears at Sophia Gardens in the quarter-finals in 2004, and losing to the Durham Dynamos in 2008 at Chester-le-Street by 44 runs in a contest where the Welsh county had been a late call-up to the quarter-finals after the Yorkshire Vikings were disqualified having fielded an ineligible player. Indeed, Glamorgan had won their final group match on June 27th, 2008 defeating the Worcestershire Royals by six wickets and had left the New Road ground believing that they were out of the competition, only to be re-instated a week or so later by the ECB for the match in the north-east on July 22
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If Glamorgan do qualify for the quarter-finals in 2014 they will be heading north again as under the rules of the NatWest T20 Blast, the team finishing fourth in the South group will play away against the winners of the Northern Group. Lancashire Lightning's victory over the Durham Jets on Thursday evening clinches top spot for them in the North Division and a home quarter-final tie.
Glamorgan therefore have their destiny in their own hands against a West Country side which in 2013 proved to be the Welsh county's nemesis in the Twenty20 competition with Gloucestershire winning at Cheltenham College by ten wickets before posting a nine-wicket win at the SWALEC Stadium nine days later. However, their victory at Cardiff last summer was only the second time that Gloucestershire had been victorious in the competition on Welsh soil. Before 2013, their sole victory had come in July 2006, with Glamorgan having won the other five matches in 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010 and again in 2011.
On Sunday afternoon, Gloucestershire defeated the Eagles by six wickets at Cheltenham College as the West Country side mounted a successful run chase against an Essex side which was missing Jesse Ryder, who had been Man-of-the-Match on Friday evening at Cardiff, with Chris Dent overseeing a torrent of late runs as Gloucestershire reached their target of 184 with two balls in hand.
Glamorgan and Gloucestershire met each other in this year's Twenty20 competition on Sunday, June 8
th at Bristol with the contest being declared a No Result following a massive thunderstorm breaking over the Nevil Road ground after the home side had posted 207/3 with both Michael Klinger and Ian Cockbain scoring feisty fifties. Steady rain then prevented Glamorgan from starting their innings and with the precipitation still falling, and pools of water building on the outfield, the umpires called off the contest with the Welsh county securing an invaluable point.
Team News
Glamorgan have announced the following 13-man squad to play Gloucestershire at the SWALEC Stadium:- J Allenby (capt), JA Rudolph, MA Wallace (wk), SJ Walters, MW Goodwin, CB Cooke, BJ Wright, DL Lloyd, GG Wagg, AG Salter, DA Cosker, MG Hogan, and AHT Donald.