Glamorgan travel to Hove for their next match in the Vitality County Championship as they meet Sussex, the current leaders of Division Two, with the four-day match scheduled to start at 1030 on Monday, 9 September. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Sussex currently sit on top of the table with six Championship victories under their belt this season, nineteen points ahead of second place Middlesex, and twenty points ahead of third placed Yorkshire knowing that another victory will significantly assist their quest of securing both the Division Two title and promotion. The game with Glamorgan also follows their crushing eight-wicket victory in their Vitality Blast quarter-final against the Lancashire Lightning under the Hove floodlights on Thursday evening to clinch a place at T20 Finals Day on Saturday, 14 September.
The Welsh county however are one of only two counties – the other being Yorkshire – to have beaten Sussex this summer in the four-day competition with Glamorgan winning the contest in early May by nine wickets at Sophia Gardens. However, Sam Northeast’s team start the match at Hove 52 points behind Sussex in fifth place in the table and, like their opponents, have two further games to play in red-ball cricket after their visit to Hove.
Last year’s match at the home of the South Coast club saw the Welsh county stage a monumental and record-breaking rearguard action after being dismissed for a paltry 123 in their first innings. Batting for a second time, there were centuries for Marnus Labuschagne, Kiran Carlson and Michael Neser as they amassed 737 from 207.5 overs - the highest-ever total in the second innings in the competition’s history whilst the difference between their two totals was also a new world record of 614.
Whilst these sterling efforts last summer saw Glamorgan to a draw, they have not defeated Sussex at their headquarters in Championship cricket since July 1975. In that match forty-nine years ago at Hove, Roger Davis scored a fine hundred in Glamorgan’s first innings, before John Solanky and Tony Cordle took four and three wickets respectively to bowl Glamorgan to a 96-run victory. This is one of five Championship victories Glamorgan have recorded in Championship matches at Hove with their other successes coming in 1952 by 47 runs, 1964 by 117 runs, 1965 by 64 runs and in 1966 by four wickets.
Like the match against Leicestershire last week at Cardiff, there are several personal milestones looming in this contest, not least the fact that Sam Northeast will arrive at Hove needing 85 runs to reach the 1,000 run landmark and emulate the recent achievement of Colin Ingram for whom the match against Sussex will also be his 50th first-class appearance for Glamorgan.
When Sam reaches this coveted landmark, it will also be the first time since 2016 – with Will Bragg and Nye Donald – that two Glamorgan batters have scored in excess of 1,000 runs in first-class cricket. With the potential for a further four innings after Hove, it would not be impossible for a third batter to reach this milestone as Kiran Carlson starts the match against Sussex with a tally of 759 runs to his name so far in 2024. Hove has been a happy hunting ground for Kiran who last year made a career-best 192 during the record-breaking second innings. If Kiran does secure the 241 runs he needs in these remaining games, it will be the first time since 2011 that three Glamorgan batters have reached 1,000 runs – an achievement thirteen years ago completed by Will Bragg, Alviro Petersen and Mark Wallace.