Glamorgan travel to Leicester for their next contest in the Rothesay County Championship with the Welsh county meeting the East Midlands side in the four-day contest at Grace Road which is scheduled to start on Sunday, 22 June at 1100. (writes Andrew Hignell)
After their defeat on Friday night against Somerset in the Vitality T20 Blast at Sophia Gardens, it's a quick turnaround for the Glamorgan team as they return to red-ball action and Kookaburra balls as they head to the Grace Road ground to meet the county who beat them by ten wickets in the opening round of the four-day competition at Cardiff earlier in April . This was the first of five victories for Leicestershire during the opening block of seven games in the competition, and which has also seen the Foxes secure a commanding lead at the top of the table with their most recent success in late May being an innings victory over a lacklustre Lancashire.
Glamorgan are 42 points behind Leicestershire in third place in the table after posting three successive victories, all with a day to spare against Kent, Northamptonshire and Middlesex, during May as they rocketed up the table. The last time Glamorgan achieved the feat of three successive victories came in 2015 and occurred during a run of four victories in May and June of that year as they defeated Essex at Sophia Gardens by 89 runs, Northamptonshire at Sophia Gardens by 10 wickets, Surrey at Guildford by 7 wickets and Leicestershire at Sophia Gardens by 137 runs.
The match between the two teams last year at Leicester ended in a draw as the weather interrupted play after Glamorgan had secured a first innings lead of 45 runs. It had been a similar outcome in 2023 after Timm van der Gugten claimed 6/88 before Chris Cooke and Michael Neser added 211 in 65.1 overs for the eighth wicket.
The contest in 2022 at Grace Road was a game which has gone down in the Club’s annals as one of the most remarkable in Glamorgan’s history with the Welsh county winning by an innings and 28 runs after Sam Northeast’s monumental 410* plus a record-breaking stand of 461 with Cooke as they amassed a record-breaking 795-5.This gave them a lead of 211 runs with 65 overs remaining at lunch on the final day. However, it only took the visiting attack 58.4 overs to dismiss the shell-shocked Leicestershire batters for a second time. After Andrew Salter had extracted turn and bounce at the Pavilion End to claim a pair of early wickets, Michael Hogan dismantled the Foxes middle-order during his second spell. The pace of Neser was then too much for the lower order before the Australian yorked Chris Wright before some joyous celebrations by the Glamorgan fielders.
As far as personal milestones are concerned, Zain-ul-Hassan requires a further 46 runs to reach 1,000 runs in first-class cricket for Glamorgan whilst Chris Cooke needs another 84 runs to reach the landmark of 8,000 first-class runs for the Welsh county.