Leicestershire beat Glamorgan by ten wickets shortly after lunch on the final day of their Specsavers County Championship match at The SSE SWALEC, after dismissing the home side for 191 and being set a target of 113 runs (writes Andrew Hignell).
Leicestershire needed a further 24 runs when play resumed after lunch on 89/0 with Paul Horton and Angus Robson quietly taking their side to the victory target a dozen overs after the interval as the opening pair continued their watchful accumulation against the seam of David Lloyd and the left-arm spin of Graham Wagg.
Robson cover drove Lloyd before Horton square-cut Wagg to the ropes at backward point, and the match ended just after 2.15pm as Robson dispatched Lloyd through the covers for four. This was the second time at the Sophia Gardens ground that Leicestershire had won by ten wickets with their previous victory by this margin coming in 1977.
Lunchtime Report
It`s fifteen years since Leicestershire last won a County Championship match in Cardiff, with their victorious side in July 2001 being captained by Vince Wells and containing Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi. Mark Wallace is the only player from this match still in action at first-class level, with the wicket-keeper behind the stumps at the Sophia Gardens ground as Glamorgan lost by an innings after their top-order of Iain Sutcliffe (203), Trevor Ward (109) and Ben Smith (117) had steered Leicestershire to 427/1 and an eventual first innings total of 588.
There have been no centuries in this year’s contest, but the efforts of Leicestershire’s lower order yesterday helped them secure a lead of 79 runs, before they reduced Glamorgan to 172/8 by the close, and an overall lead of just 93 runs after a mid-innings stutter of four wickets in thirteen wickets had stymied the home side’s progress. Graham Wagg and Michael Hogan duly resumed this morning knowing that another thirty or forty runs could make for an interesting scenario.
But Ben Raine struck with the eighth ball of the morning as Hogan was caught behind as Niall O’Brien snaffled his fifth victim. With Timm van der Gugten as his new partner, Wagg upper cut a short ball from Charlie Shreck for four before drilling Raine to long-on for another swash-buckling four. But in Raine’s next over, Wagg was run out attempting a second run with an arrow-like throw from Angus Robson from deep backward point was helped onto the stumps by a gleeful O`Brien.
This left Leicestershire with a target of 113 from the remaining 88 overs and Paul Horton began by dispatching both Craig Meschede and Hogan through extra cover for four, After a series of one’s and two’s, Angus Robson also secured a boundary as he punched Meschede off the back foot through the covers. Horton then greeted van der Gugten by flicking him to fine-leg for four before steering Meschede through backward point for four. Horton also clipped Wagg to fine-leg for four before inside-edging a ball from the left-armer onto the stumps but the bails did not drop.
Horton celebrated his good fortune by on-driving Wagg for four and then clipping van der Gugten through mid-wicket whilst Robson also steered Wagg through point for another boundary.Shortly before the interval, David Lloyd had a trundle whilst Wagg also had a spell of left-arm spin. Horton duly completed a 70-ball fifty in the final over before lunch as he steered Lloyd to third man.