Glamorgan complete 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 1030 on Monday 26 September. (writes Andrew Hignell)
Glamorgan’s emphatic innings victory over Derbyshire at Cardiff has kept the Welsh county in the promotion race with the Welsh county entering the final round of games in third place in the table, nine points behind Middlesex who meet Worcestershire at New Road and eighteen points behind leaders Nottinghamshire who play Durham at Trent Bridge. Whilst a very close eye will be kept on events at New Road, another huge victory for David Lloyd and his team on the South Coast and heavy defeats for both Nottinghamshire and Middlesex could see Glamorgan clinch promotion and even the Division Two title as well.
Besides these collective goals, the final game of the season will see Michael Hogan make his last appearance in Glamorgan’s ranks whilst David Lloyd seeks to reach the 1000-run aggregate for the first time in his career. His monumental 313* has taken his seasonal tally to 843 runs – his best-ever in first-class cricket - and, if he makes 157 runs in the game at Hove, David will reach this milestone.
The Welsh county beat Sussex by five wickets earlier in the season at Sophia Gardens with Eddie Byrom and Colin Ingram sharing a majestic stand of 328 in 90 overs for the second wicket. However, Hove has been something of a bogey ground for Glamorgan in recent years, with the Welsh county not having 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 batsmen 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 on the final morning before setting Glamorgan a target of 275 in 51 overs.
Although Glamorgan won at Cardiff earlier this summer and at Colwyn Bay in a high-scoring game in 2000, you have to go back to July 1975 for Glamorgan’s last Championship success in Sussex. In that match forty-two 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 39 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.