Glamorgan meet Somerset at Cardiff in their next match in the Vitality Blast on Wednesday 16 September with the floodlit T20 contest scheduled to get underway at Sophia Gardens at 6.30pm.(writes Andrew Hignell)
Somerset are currently in fourth place in the Central Group, having lost on Sunday afternoon by 11 runs to Gloucestershire at Taunton. After their impressive seven-wicket victory over the Northants Steelbacks, Glamorgan remain in fifth place, level on points with the West Country side, but below them because of Somerset’s superior net run rate.
Somerset have already defeated Glamorgan in this year’s T20 competition and they arrive in the Welsh capital having been victorious on their previous two visits. The West Country side won last summer by eight wickets with half-centuries by David Lloyd and Colin Ingram being trumped by Tom Banton’s explosive 64 from 34 balls before the England international miscued a pull against Andrew Salter and holed out at deep mid-wicket. Thoughts of a Glamorgan rally were then erased by a stand of 69 from 48 balls by Peter Trego and James Hildreth as Somerset reached their target with two overs remaining.
In 2018 Somerset were the victors again after a boundary-laden stand of 97 in 8.1 overs between Corey Anderson and James Hildreth, with their efforts transforming the game after the visitors had slipped to 59-4 after eight overs, with Timm van der Gugten claiming a trio of wickets including the scalp of Tom Abell who was deftly caught by wicket-keeper Chris Cooke running back towards fine-leg. But Anderson and Hildreth halted the clatter of wickets with the former bludgeoning a brace of sixes as he raced to fifty from 25 balls.
The game in 2017 between the two sides at Cardiff was a ‘No Result’ after the intervention of rain, but Glamorgan were victorious in 2016 when Somerset visited Sophia Gardens with the Welsh county winning by seven wickets after Colin Ingram had taken 3/20 with his canny leg-breaks, whilst Graham Wagg and Shaun Tait each claimed a couple of cheap wickets apiece, before Ingram made an accomplished fifty to see his side to victory.
2015 had seen Somerset lose under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern Method in a rain-affected encounter at Glamorgan’s headquarters with the Welsh county having won the contest as their innings – reduced to just five overs – moved ahead of the par score just before the rain pit an end to proceedings, thanks to Ingram drilling a pair of fours in an over from Alfonso Thomas, before a deftly struck boundary by Jacques Rudolph in what proved to be the final over of the floodlit game.