Glamorgan travel to Northampton for their next contest in the Rothesay County Championship which is scheduled to start at the Wantage Road ground at 1030am on Monday, 8 September. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Red-ball cricket resumes after the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, with Glamorgan currently in second place in the Division Two table, with a couple of games to also play following their visit to Northampton. The Welsh county are very much in the promotion race into Division One for 2026, as they currently sit 28 points behind leaders Leicestershire and 24 points ahead of Derbyshire in third place.
The away match with Northants in 2025 ended in a draw after an unbeaten double hundred from Karun Nair, the Indian batter, plus 182 from opener Ricardo Vasconcelos had seen Northamptonshire secure an imposing first innings lead of 334 after half-centuries for Glamorgan from Colin Ingram, Dan Douthwaite and Mason Crane. Although a few wickets fell on the third evening when Glamorgan batted for a second time, the home team’s hopes of victory were trumped as steady rain on the final day saw the contest end all square.
Glamorgan previous visit to Northampton in 2021, had seen a victory for the East Midlands team as their batters toyed with the Welsh county’s attack on the final day of the game as they chased what appeared to be a daunting target of 355 in a minimum of 79 overs. Glamorgan had hitherto dominated the game, but Vasconcelos and Rob Keogh added 239 in the space of 46 overs with the home side cantering to victory with 38 balls in hand.
In 2020 the Northampton ground had also been the scene of a remarkable debut century by Callum Taylor, as well as a 62-ball blitzkrieg by Marchant de Lange as the latter bludgeoned Glamorgan’s fastest-ever hundred in first-class cricket. But their efforts in the game, which because of COVID was part of the Bob Willis Trophy, were in a losing cause as the East Midlands side won by six wickets.
Glamorgan’s most recent Championship victory at Wantage Road came in 2019 when they won by an innings and 143 runs, with Billy Root’s career-best 229 laying the foundations for victory as the Welsh county reached a sizeable first innings total of 547 being trouncing the Northamptonshire batters thanks to some hostile seam bowling by the triumvirate of Michael Hogan, Timm van der Gugten and de Lange as the home side were dismissed for 209 and 195.
The match will see some personal milestones being reached with James Harris set to make his 100th appearance in first-class cricket for Glamorgan and Chris Cooke his 150th. Several batters are also closing in on the 1,000 run landmark with Colin Ingram, currently on 938 first-class runs, needing a further 62 to reach the milestone, whilst Kiran Carlson on 841 runs requires another 159 runs to also reach 1,000 for the season, and all at the ground where he made his County Championship debut back in August 2016.