While the highlights of Glamorgan’s cricket this season have mainly come with the white ball rather than in Championship cricket, three young players have given Welsh cricket fans something to cheer this season (writes Peter Miller).
Welsh born Glamorgan players David Lloyd, Aneurin Donald and Owen Morgan all made their maiden first-class hundreds this season and all three will head into 2017 with their reputations much-enhanced and full of confidence.
Donald and Lloyd got there in the very first first-class match of the season when they scored tons against the Cardiff MCCU students, but both would have targeted the bigger prize of a County Championship hundred.
Lloyd did not have long to wait to get there, making 107 against Kent at the beginning of May. It has been an outstanding season for the 24-year-old North Walian, who already has his most successful run-scoring season in first-class cricket with four matches left in the season. Lloyd now has three hundreds in first-class cricket as well as a career best season with the bat in 50-over and Twenty20 cricket.
Lloyd’s efforts as an opener in white ball cricket has been one of the big positives from 2016. He has made himself an automatic selection for the county in every format in a season where he has come of age.
For 19-year-old Donald that maiden Championship hundred took a while longer. While he was making starts – he has four fifties in the competition this year – it took until July to reach the landmark. When he did reach three figures against another county it was really quite remarkable. He walked to the crease with his team in trouble at 96/3. When he got out 51 overs later the score was 437/7.
Donald reached his hundred off 80 balls and got to his double-century 36 balls later – 116 deliveries to reach 200 is the joint fastest in the history of first-class cricket. He eventually got out for 234 from 136 balls in an innings that included 26 fours and 15 sixes. If there is a more emphatic way to get your first hundred in the Championship, it is difficult to imagine it.
Donald’s attacking approach to batting can sometimes make his innings’ a rollercoaster ride to watch, but when it comes off as it did in North Wales it wins games of cricket. If he carries on making big hundreds like this one for the club, its fans will be royally entertained in the coming years.
The last of the Welsh born maiden century-makers was by far the least likely. Owen Morgan is a left arm spinner who plays club cricket for Pontarddulais. He made his Glamorgan debut at the match against Sussex in Hove and did well enough with the ball, claiming two wickets as Sussex piled up a massive 552/5 in their only innings of the match.
Even on Glamorgan debut Morgan, was given the job of nightwatchman, and he made 36 batting at three in that match against Sussex. In the game against Northamptonshire at Swansea he was even promoted to open in the second innings as Glamorgan looked to save the match. It was clear that the Glamorgan management rated his batting ability and that faith was rewarded in the game against Worcestershire.
Morgan batted at seven in the first innings, but when Nick Selman fell for a duck in the second dig Morgan was given the nightwatchman’s job again. Glamorgan were chasing 277 to win and it was the 22-year-old Morgan that held the chase together. He batted almost six hours and faced 242 balls on his way to 103 not out. It was an innings of class, maturity and composure.
The batting of these three young Welsh talents is hugely exciting for the future of the club.
One of the primary jobs of the county game is to develop talented youngsters that perform at the highest level. It is far too early to be talking about England recognition for these young men, but all of them are talented and driven. Who knows what the future holds for them.
While the future is exciting the present is also something that we should enjoy. These three young men have come through the club's development system, made it into the first team and started to perform.
Hopefully they will become the backbone of a successful Glamorgan side for years to come. In the meantime we get to watch them grow as players and as young men. That is something that can be as enjoyable as on-field success.