Glamorgan’s next match in the Specsavers County Championship sees the Welsh county head to Lord’s for their first red ball game since 2011 on the hallowed turf at the St. John’s Wood ground, with the four-day contest against Middlesex scheduled to get under way at 11am on Friday, April 27th.
After their six-wicket victory against Gloucestershire in their opening Championship contest at Bristol, Michael Hogan and his team will be looking to maintain their winning ways and register Glamorgan’s third successive victory in first-class matches at Lord’s. In contrast, Middlesex have made a quixotic start to their Championship campaign, recording a resounding victory over Northamptonshire at Lord’s before suffering a 101-run defeat at Derby, besides seeing three of their seamers - James Harris, Toby Roland-Jones and Tim Murtagh – sustain injuries which could threaten their participation in the game against Glamorgan.
The Welsh county have been victorious on their most recent visits (in 2010 and 2011) with the contest at Lord’s in 2011 seeing an eight-wicket haul by James Harris (then a Glamorgan player), plus a century from Ben Wright and 87 by Will Bragg helping to lay the foundations for a nine-wicket victory. Thanks to probing spells of seam bowling by David Harrison and Huw Waters, Glamorgan were also victorious at Lord’s in 2010 as they defeated Middlesex by 78 runs.
Before these victories in 2010 and 2011, Glamorgan’s previous two Championship victories at Lord’s had been back in the 1950s, with the Welsh county - then led by Wilf Wooller - winning by 22 runs in 1954 and by 131 runs in 1952.
Glamorgan’s most recent visit to Lord’s, in September 2013, was for the final of the Yorkshire Bank40 competition, as Glamorgan met the Notts Outlaws. Only three of the Glamorgan side from that match in 2013 are likely to feature in the squad for this year’s visit to Lord’s with Michael Hogan, Andrew Salter and Chris Cooke – who was Glamorgan’s top-scorer in the game against the Outlaws – all looking to erase memories of the defeat against the Outlaws by 87 runs and to end up on a winning team at cricket’s most famous and historic venue.