Colin Ingram, with 1351 runs, together with Timm van der Gugten and James Harris each with 30 wickets, finished the 2024 season as Glamorgan’s leading run-scorer and wicket-takers respectively in first-class cricket this summer. (writes Andrew Hignell)
For Colin, in particular, it has been a quite a season with the 39 year-old left-hander ending up as the country’s leading run-scorer in first-class cricket and an overall tally of 2,001 runs in all formats. His seasonal aggregate of 1,351 first-class runs is also the highest for the Welsh county since David Hemp, another top-class southpaw, amassed 1,369 runs during 2005.
In all, Colin struck five hundreds, including a magnificent and maiden double-hundred against Leicestershire at Sophia Gardens with only fellow South African David Bedingham scoring more centuries than Colin with the Durham batter hitting six but ending 20 runs short of Colin’s impressive tally.
Colin was also “Mr. Consistency” during the course of the four-day season and registered a score of 50 or more in each of the eleven Championship matches he played. For the record, below is Colin’s remarkable sequence of innings in first-class cricket during 2024:
v Middlesex at Lord’s – 132*
v Derbyshire at Cardiff – 30 and 51
v Northants at Northampton – 82 and 11
v Yorkshire at Headingley – 48 and 113
v Sussex at Cardiff - 170
v Middlesex at Cardiff – 10 and 105
v Derbyshire at Derby – 10 and 53
v Leicestershire at Cardiff – 257*
v Sussex at Hove – 27 and 71
v Yorkshire at Cardiff – 82 and 15
v Gloucestershire at Cardiff – 84
As a result, the batter deservedly won the Club’s Player of the Year Award and ended the summer with a Bradman-esque batting average of 90.06, comfortably the best-ever for Glamorgan, eclipsing Michael Neser’s 81.18 and Marnus Labuschagne’s 71.71 both made during 2023.
Colin’s record-breaking average bears decent comparison with other batters in recent times who have played ten innings or more in Championship cricket and have ended the summer with an average in excess of 90:
Cheteshawar Pujara (Sussex) in 2022 - 1094 @ 109.40
Harry Brook (Yorkshire) in 2022 - 967 @ 107.44
Kumar Sangakkara (Surrey) in 2017 - 1491 @ 106.50
Mark Ramprakash (Middx) in 2006 - 2278 @ 103.54
Mark Ramprakash (Middx) in 2007 - 2026 @ 101.30
Jonny Bairstow (Yorks) in 2015 - 1108 @ 92.33
Nick Compton (Somerset) in 2012 - 1191 @ 99.25
Alastair Cook (Essex) in 2016 - 643 @ 91.85