Glamorgan take a break from Twenty20 action as they head to North Wales to meet Lancashire in the annual first-class match at Colwyn Bay, with the contest in the Specsavers County Championship at the attractive ground in Rhos-on-Sea scheduled to start at 11am on Sunday, August 18th.
(writes Andrew Hignell)
It’s the big match of the season as far as Championship cricket is concerned with Lancashire, leading the Division Two table meeting second place Glamorgan who are 28 points in arrears and have a clutch of other counties behind them, all vying to get into the top three and secure promotion into Division One, with four matches remaining this summer.
Lancashire are the only unbeaten side in the red-ball competition with five wins and five draws to their name. Glamorgan have three wins to their credit, plus six draws and just one defeat, in their most recent Championship match back in early July against Middlesex at Sophia Gardens. This is the only time that the Welsh county meet the Red Rose outfit this summer, with Glamorgan’s three remaining games after their visit to North Wales seeing them meet Worcestershire at New Road, then Leicestershire at Cardiff and finally Durham at Chester-le-Street during the last week of September as the curtain comes down on Championship cricket this summer.
Lancashire met Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay in 2015 with the high-scoring contest seeing Ashwell Prince and Alviro Petersen add a record 501 for the third wicket to lay the foundations of a victory for the Red Rose county by an innings and 157 runs. The two teams also met at Colwyn Bay in 2013 with Lancashire winning a dramatic encounter by 14 runs as Glamorgan – chasing a target of 154 on the third afternoon - dramatically collapsed from 94/2 to 139 all out with spinner Simon Kerrigan taking 5/32.
In all, this will be the eighth time that the two teams have played each other at Colwyn Bay in Championship cricket with Lancashire also winning the contest in 1994 by 220 runs, whilst the games in 1990, 1992, 1998 and 2001 all ended in draws.
Glamorgan’s last victory on Welsh soil against Lancashire in a first-class match came in July 1996 at Sophia Gardens when the Welsh county were victorious by 48 runs. Their victory was set up by an imperious 214 from Matthew Maynard as Glamorgan posted a formidable total of 505, before Robert Croft and Dean Cosker shared nine wickets between them as the spinners guided Glamorgan home on the final afternoon. By a stroke of coincidence, Cosker will be the Cricket Liaison Officer for this year’s Championship match at Colwyn Bay.