Glamorgan travel to Leicester to complete their programme in the Specsavers County Championship with the Welsh county meeting the East Midlands side in the four-day contest starting on Tuesday, September 20th.
During the last few years, Glamorgan have played at Grace Road much earlier in the season and in 2015 they were at Leicester for the opening contest of the summer, with the Welsh county enjoying the better of a drawn contest with both Jacques Rudolph and Will Bragg posting assertive hundreds.
In contrast, Leicestershire held the upper hand in the game during 2014 with a stubborn partnership between Stewart Walters and John Glover helping Glamorgan to scramble a draw on the final afternoon. The match at Leicester in 2013 was an altogether different affair as the home side were forced to follow-on only for the weather to intervene and save Leicestershire from defeat as the game ended in a draw.
Glamorgan’s most recent victory in a Championship match at Leicester came in quite dramatic circumstances in May 2010 after the Welsh side had conceded a first innings deficit of 53 runs. Yet within 24 hours, Glamorgan’s seam bowlers had turned the game on its head as they dismissed Leicestershire for 71 with both James Harris and David Harrison taking four wickets in a masterly display of new ball bowling. Openers Gareth Rees and Mark Cosgrove then bludgeoned 198 runs inside 34 overs as Glamorgan romped to a ten-wicket victory.
Cosgrove is now the Leicestershire captain, and currently is the second highest run-scorer in Division Two with over 1200 first-class runs to his name this summer. Another quiet salient statistic however, is that Leicestershire have only recorded one win in their last 31 matches at their headquarters.
There are several landmarks looming for several Glamorgan bowlers with both Michael Hogan and Timm van der Gugten, recently named as PLayer of the Year, going into the match close to 50 first-class wickets. Hogan, after his sterling efforts in the victory at Chelmsford has 44 wickets to his name, whilst van der Gugten has 47 victims and is set to follow in the footsteps of several other international seam bowlers, including Waqar Younis (1997), Ottis Gibson (1994), Michael Kasprowicz (2002) and Hogan himself in 2013 by claiming over 50 first-class wickets in his first season with Glamorgan in county cricket.