Glamorgan continue their first-class campaign at Lord’s on Good Friday, 18 April as they meet Middlesex in the Rothesay County Championship with the four-day match across the Easter Bank Holiday scheduled to start at 1100 at the historic ground in St. John’s Wood. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Middlesex are currently bottom of the Division Two table having lost last weekend to Kent at Canterbury after earlier drawing with Lancashire at Lord’s in the opening round of Championship matches a fortnight ago. Glamorgan are one place above them in 7th spot after a fighting draw against Gloucestershire at Bristol, thanks in no small part to Colin Ingram who made 103 and 77* and in the process reached the milestone of 4,000 first-class runs for the Welsh county.
The southpaw made a fine hundred last year at Lord’s but it was Sam Northeast who took centre-stage during a high scoring and record-breaking affair with his unbeaten 335 breaking the record, previously held by Graham Gooch for the highest individual score in first-class cricket at the historic ground. Glamorgan’s red-ball captain also shared an unbroken partnership of 299 for the fourth wicket with Ingram as Glamorgan reached 620-3. Middlesex then replied with 655 with Ryan Higgins making 221 as the game ended all-square – one of 24 draws between the two teams at Lord’s.
Glamorgan have beaten Middlesex on four occasions in Championship matches at Lord’s – in 1952, 1954, 2010, 2011 – as well as winning the game at Southgate in 2000. Their success in 2010 came by 78 runs and was set up by some probing spells of seam bowling by David Harrison and Huw Waters. In 2011 James Harris took an eight-wicket haul whilst a century from Ben Wright plus 87 by Will Bragg helped to lay the foundations for a nine-wicket victory. As far as other recent games at the Home of Cricket are concerned, Middlesex won in 2022 by ten wickets, whilst the game in 2018 ended in a rain-affected draw.
Regarding personal milestones, Sam Northeast needs a further 84 runs to reach the career milestone of 3,000 first-class runs for Glamorgan, whilst Chris Cooke needs 125 to reach the career landmark of 8,000 runs in all first-class cricket. On the bowling front, Timm van der Gugten also needs one further wicket to reach the milestone of 400 wickets in all formats for Glamorgan’s 1st XI.