What a summer 2022 has been for Glamorgan in the County Championship as the Welsh county finished in 3rd place with six victories – their best seasonal tally since 2010 when, under Jamie Dalrymple, they recorded seven victories, and also ended up in third place in the Division Two table (writes Andrew Hignell) .
The statistical highlight of 2022 was Sam Northeast's monumental 410* against Leicestershire at Grace Road as he registered the highest-ever individual score in the Club’s history. In September David Lloyd made 313* against Derbyshire at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff to post the Club’s second-highest score and the best-ever by a Glamorgan captain. It was also the first-ever time during a season that any county team had batters with a 400 and a 300 to their name during the same season.
Sam Northeast ended the season with the fifth highest aggregate in the County Championship with his tally of 1,189 being surpassed only by Wayne Madsen (1273), Haseeb Hameed (1235), Keaton Jennings (1233) and Ben Compton (1193). Whilst these notes focus on red-ball performances, we should not forget that Sam also made a record-breaking List A score with 177* in the Royal London Cup match at Worcester.
Colin Ingram topped the Club’s first-class batting averages with his 596 coming at 66.22 per completed innings. Only Javed Miandad with an average of 69.43 in 1981 and Steve James with 68.27 during 1997 have ended a season with higher seasonal batting averages.
In all, seven Glamorgan batters ended the year with a batting average in excess of 40 (Colin Ingram 66.22; Shubman Gill 61.00; Sam Northeast 59.45; Chris Cooke 56.00; Eddie Byrom 49.00; Marnus Labuschagne 41.88; Timm van der Gugten 40.60) There has only been one previous summer when more batters have ended the year with an average in excess of 40 with 8 batters exceeding this benchmark during 1990.
Two all-time record partnerships were established with Eddie Byrom and Colin Ingram completing best-ever 328 for the second wicket against Sussex at Sophia Gardens, whilst Sam Northeast and Chris Cooke added an unbeaten 461 during the run-fest against Leicestershire at Grace Road.
On the bowling front, Michael Hogan topped the Club’s wicket-taking lists with 45 wickets at 27 runs apiece whilst congratulations go to Chris Cooke who, besides having a best-ever aggregate of 840 first-class runs, ended the 2022 season as the country’s most successful wicket-keeper in first-class cricket with 56 dismissals, four more than Derbyshire’s Brooke Guest.