Four of Glamorgan’s promising young talented Welsh players have been rewarded with new contracts for their performances this season.
Following some outstanding contributions this season Owen Morgan and Lukas Carey have both been handed two-year contracts by the Club, after making their County Championship debuts, whilst recent record breaker Kiran Carlson and Jack Murphy have both signed one year contracts with the Welsh county.
Both Morgan and Carey have impressed Jacques Rudolph, Robert Croft and Hugh Morris with their displays and will now stay with Glamorgan until the end of the 2018 season at the very least.
Swansea-born allrounder Morgan impressed in making his bow against Sussex at Hove, but grabbed the headlines with a match-winning 103 not out against Worcestershire in August in just his fourth first-class match.
Carey, from Croft’s home club of Pontarddulais, took seven wickets on debut against Northamptonshire at Swansea, including the prize scalp of England Lions star Ben Duckett with his 11th ball in first-class cricket.
Morgan said: “It feels great to earn my first professional contract with Glamorgan. I guess it’s been a long time coming. I’ve put in a lot of hard work and graft and it’s amazing to see it paying off on the pitch. There are a few young Welsh players coming through at the moment and it’s brilliant to be a part of that.”
“Playing for Glamorgan is such a huge honour,” said Lukas Carey. “Making my debut was a very proud moment and I’m ecstatic to earn a two-year contract. Hopefully I can repay the coaches and staff for having faith in me, with some good performances.”
Jack Murphy and Kiran Carlson both made their List A debuts for Glamorgan earlier this season against Pakistan A at Newport after continuing to perform consistently for Steve Watkin’s Glamorgan Second XI.
Eighteen-year-old Carlson went on to record a five-for against Northamptonshire on his County Championship debut, the first to do so on debut for Glamorgan since Darren Thomas at Chesterfield in 1992 and followed this success by becoming the youngest ever centurion for the Club this week scoring 119 against Essex at Chelmsford.
The future looks bright for Carlson on and off the field Carlson, after he achieved A-Level A grades in Maths, Physics and Chemistry last month, but he will take a year out from academia to concentrate on cricket, before heading to Cardiff University in September 2017.
“It’s a great honour to sign with Glamorgan and coming through the academy it’s just brilliant to be taking that next step,” said Carlson, “I’m going to be studying at Cardiff University, but I’m taking a year out to play cricket – going over to Australia and then with Glamorgan next year.
“It was great to make my debut this year and hopefully I can build on that next year.”
Glamorgan Chief Executive and Director of Cricket Morris was delighted to see these home-grown talents earn their stripes in first-class cricket, commenting: “Lukas and Owen have done tremendously well this season and along with Kiran they will remember their contributions on their first-class debuts for some time. I’m sure Jack will get his chance to play first-class cricket before too long.
“We had a chance to blood a few youngsters this year and these players have really put their hands up when it mattered.
“We’ve got a good production line of home-grown cricketers rising through the ranks at the moment, which bodes well for an exciting future at the club,” he added. “As people like Aneurin Donald and David Lloyd have shown this season, they can make an impact in the first team.
We hope to see a lot more of these players and their former Academy peers playing for Glamorgan in the next few years.”
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