The Kent Spitfires will be Glamorgan’s next opponent in the NatWest T20 Blast as the two teams meet up at The SSE SWALEC on Friday, June 17th with the floodlit contest scheduled to start at 6.30pm (Gates open at 5pm)
Despite the abandonment of their match against Somerset at Taunton on Wednesday evening, Glamorgan remain on top of the South Group in the tournament and go into Friday night’s match with the Spitfires on the back of a victory by three wickets under the DLS Method in their match against Kent at Canterbury in the Royal London One-Day Cup last Sunday, thanks to another fine innings by Colin Ingram whose un beaten 95 from 53 balls guided the Welsh county to victory after Sam Billings and Joe Denly had each scored unbeaten hundreds for the home side.
The two teams have also been involved in some thrilling encounters in Twenty20 cricket during the past few years, with Glamorgan winning last summer at Tunbridge Wells by the slender margin of one run, thanks to a fine all-round performance by Graham Wagg who, after a typically forthright fifty delivered a frugal closing spell, before another nerveless final over by Michael Hogan, and some smart fielding on the boundary’s edge by David Lloyd off the final ball, saw Glamorgan to a nerve-jangling victory by one run and their first-ever T20 victory over the Spitfires.
Their match at the SSE SWALEC in 2014 ended in a dramatic tie as Glamorgan overcame a late batting onslaught by Darren Stevens, with Hogan yet again holding his nerve to deliver a superb final over before a run-out from the final ball saw Jacques Rudolph remove the bails with Kent’s batsman out of his ground as the pulsating contest ended all square.
The games between the Welsh county and the Spitfires at Cardiff in 2010 and 2011 saw more convincing victories for the English county, with Kent winning in 2010 by 14 runs under the Duckworth-Lewis Method, and by six wickets the following year .
Friday’s match could also be a memorable one for evergreen spin bowler Dean Cosker who goes into the contest with 98 Twenty20 wickets to his name, and two more wickets for the left-arm spinner would see him become the first Glamorgan to claim 100 wickets in the short format of the game and join the small and exclusive list of bowlers who have claimed over 100 wickets in Twenty20 cricket in England and Wales which includes seam bowlers Yasir Arafat, Azhar Mahmood, Alfonso Thomas, Richard Pyrah and Graham Napier plus fellow spinners Danny Briggs, Samit Patel and James Tredwell.