Glamorgan secured promotion this afternoon into Division One of the Rothesay County Championship for 2026 as they claimed enough bonus points in their rain-ravaged draw at Derby to give them a sufficiently large cushion ahead of the teams in third, fourth and fifth place in the Division Two table. As such, the teams below them cannot leapfrog above the Welsh county during the final round of matches next week. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Glamorgan had gone into this game needing to prevent Derbyshire from winning the contest and hoping that Middlesex and Gloucestershire did not secure enough bonus points so that the promotion race went into the final week of the season.
However, the significant loss of playing time at Derby – more than the total in all of the Welsh county’s previous twelve games this season – the resultant draw against Derbyshire, Middlesex's draw at Old Trafford, and Gloucestershire - despite beating Northants in a gripping final hour at Bristol - not securing enough batting or bowling points in their first innings, means that Glamorgan have now secured the second, and highly coveted, promotion spot.
The team are now set to play in the top tier of the premier first-class competition for the first time since exactly twenty years ago on 18 September 2005 when the Glamorgan side, led back then by Robert Croft, were defeated by Hampshire at Sophia Gardens by 75 runs – one of fourteen defeats from their sixteen matches that summer.
Since 2005, the Welsh county have played a total of 284 matches in Division Two of the County Championship, winning 61, tying a dramatic contest with Gloucestershire at Cheltenham in 2024, besides drawing 124 games and losing a further 98 contests. During this period, Glamorgan’s best position in the Division Two table has previously been third place, which they achieved in 2010, despite having gone into the final match of that season, against Derbyshire at Cardiff, in second place in the table.
Journalists had dubbed the final day of the contest on 16 September 2010 as the Club’s day of destiny, but it turned into a day of despair as the Welsh county, who were pipped at the post on the final afternoon by Worcestershire, a side who Glamorgan had comprehensively defeated both at home and away in their tally of seven wins – ironically, the same number of victories as Nottinghamshire, the winners of Division One. But at New Road, Worcestershire successfully completed an unexpected run-chase against top of the table Sussex.
Thankfully, there will be no such dramas during the final contest of the 2025 season as Glamorgan go into the match against Lancashire at Sophia Gardens knowing that they cannot be overtaken.