Middlesex are Glamorgan’s next opponents at Sophia Gardens in the LV= Insurance County Championship, with the four-day contest at the Cardiff ground starting at 11am on Thursday, April 21st (writes Andrew Hignell).
Glamorgan’s outstanding victory on Sunday afternoon at Trent Bridge has catapulted the Welsh county into top spot in the Division Two table with David Lloyd’s team producing an emphatic seven-wicket win against a team which had been tipped by many as the likely winners of the Division.
It was also their first Championship victory since 1998 at the Trent Bridge ground, with the seven-wicket win ended a 24-year drought at the east Midlands ground. However, it is thirty one years since Glamorgan last recorded a Championship victory at their Cardiff base against Middlesex, with the victory in June 1991 coming during a rain-affected contest as four-wicket hauls by off-cutter Steve Barwick and seamer Mark Frost saw Glamorgan to a 129-run victory.
This also remains the Welsh county’s sole Championship victory in fifteen matches against Middlesex at Sophia Gardens after the move at the end of the 1966 season away from the Arms Park – a ground where Glamorgan also only recorded one victory in nine Championship matches against Middlesex, with their sole success coming in 1950 when they won by 86 runs.
Since Glamorgan’s victory at Sophia Gardens back in 1991, the nine Championship games with Middlesex have seen seven defeats and two draws against the North London side, with Middlesex winning by an innings in 1997, 1998 and 2005, as well as being victorious by ten wickets in 1993, by eight wickets in 2002 and by six wickets in 2010. Middlesex also recorded a comfortable victory on their most recent visit to the Welsh capital, as Toby Roland-Jones claimed a nine-wicket match haul whilst centuries by Dawid Malan and Sam Robson laid the foundations for their win by 256 runs.
This game will also be a landmark occasion for wicket-keeper Chris Cooke who is set to make his 100th appearance in a first-class match for Glamorgan.