Glamorgan travel to Leicester for their next contest in the LV=Insurance County Championship with the Welsh county meeting the East Midlands side in the four-day contest at Grace Road which is scheduled to start at 1100 on Wednesday, 20 July. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Their draw with Nottinghamshire last week at Sophia Gardens means that Glamorgan are currently within a point of second-placed Middlesex following the latter’s defeat by Worcestershire in the recent round of Championship games. Leicestershire, who Glamorgan defeated by six wickets, in early May remain bottom of the Division Two table despite their record-breaking total of 756-4 dec at Hove in their draw last week with Sussex in a contest which saw both Colin Ackermann and Wiaan Mulder score double hundreds, but also saw only fourteen wickets tumble across the four days.
Glamorgan’s last visit to the Grace Road ground came in 2018 when the Welsh county lost a dramatic contest by three runs after a buccaneering innings by Marchant de Lange. Glamorgan had been chasing a target of 250 but slumped to 139-8 before de Lange, in the space of just 45 balls, put bat to ball with a salvo of fours and sixes. 56 runs were still needed when Hogan joined de Lange, but runs continued to haemorrhage with left-arm spinner Callum Parkinson conceding 21 runs in an over as de Lange struck successive sixes, whilst overs from Varun Aaron and Gavin Griffiths also saw the ball speed to, and over, the boundary boards as the target, amidst growing tension, swiftly fell into single figures. Raine then returned at the Pavilion End with the gleeful de Lange depositing him straight back over his head for four before lofting the next delivery into Parkinson’s hands at long-on just as it looked as if the South African had struck the winning runs.
Leicestershire’s victory in September 2016, had also been quite dramatic and unexpected as the Welsh county, seemingly in sight of victory, lost six wickets for just ten runs in the space of 26 balls. The Welsh county drew their matches at Leicester in 2017 and 2015, with both Jacques Rudolph and Will Bragg posting assertive hundreds in the latter game.
Glamorgan’s most recent victory in a Championship match at Leicester came 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. Opening batsmen Gareth Rees and Mark Cosgrove then bludgeoned 198 runs inside 34 overs as Glamorgan romped to a ten-wicket victory.