Glamorgan continue their campaign in the LV=Insurance County Championship as they travel to Hove to meet Sussex with the four-day match scheduled to start at 1100 on Thursday 18 May. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Their ten-wicket thrashing of Worcestershire has lifted Glamorgan into fourth place in the Division Two table, one point behind Leicestershire who drew on Sunday with Sussex who are in second place. The South coast side are twelve points ahead of Glamorgan and eleven points behind leaders Durham who completed a nerve-jangling one-wicket victory over Yorkshire at Chester-le-Street.
Thanks to another outstanding effort last week at Cardiff, Timm van der Gugten has claimed 28 first-class wickets at an average of 18.53 with only Chris Rushworth - formerly at Durham and now with Warwickshire - having claimed more wickets than the Glamorgan bowler, with 30 to his name.
Even though the Welsh county beat Sussex by five wickets at Sophia Gardens in 2022, Hove has been something of a bogey ground for Glamorgan in recent years, Glamorgan have not defeated Sussex at their headquarters in Championship cricket since July 1975, whilst the contest between the two counties at Hove in 2018 saw Glamorgan dismissed for 85 and 88 in a game that ended on day two.
Their batters fared much better in 2019, with Marnus Labuschagne and Nick Selman sharing a Club record second wicket stand of 291 in 75.2 overs in a match which ended in a draw after Marnus had posted what, at the time, was a career-best 182. Glamorgan also drew their Championship contest in 2021 at Hove after Ben Brown, the former Sussex captain, completed an unbeaten hundred, as well as drawing last summer’s game at the ground despite being able to enforce the follow-on.
You have to go back to July 1975 for Glamorgan’s last Championship success in Sussex. In that match forty-eight 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.