Match Reports

Glamorgan v Gloucestershire

Day Four

It took Gloucestershire a mere 78 minutes to polish off Glamorgan on the fourth and final day of their LV= Insurance County Championship Division 2 match at Sophia Gardens and head home with 22 points to move into second in the table.

The Welsh county resumed on 57-6, still 43 runs behind the visitors, and they were obviously intent on not falling to a third successive defeat by an innings. The overnight batsmen Dan Douthwaite and Andrew Salter didn’t hang around as they attempted to close the gap and force Gloucestershire to bat again.

Salter immediately attacked the visiting hero of the previous day, Zafar Gohar, and picked up 10 runs in the opening over of the day. He took six off Ryan Higgins next over and seven off Zafar’s second to give his side an impressive start.

But his flourish was all too brief and Zafar took his fourth wicket of the innings in the 32nd over when he trapped Salter LBW for 19. A mere 14 balls later, Ruaidhri Smith became his fifth victim as Glamorgan slumped to 94-8.

Smith attempted a reverse sweep off the left arm spinner and found himself bowled around his legs having added only four runs. Now it was just a case of whether or not the home side’s tail to haul them over the line to prevent another embarrassing innings defeat.

Douthwaite was the next to fall, bowled by Higgins as he became the Gloucestershire seamer’s 50th championship victim of the summer, and that left Timm van der Gugten and Michael Hogan needing to score eight runs to make Gloucestershire pad up again.

To their credit, they put on 22 for the final wicket, the third highest partnership of the innings as Glamorgan moved on to 124. Zafar finally removed van der Gugten to end with 6-43 from 18 devastating overs, although not before the home batsman had hit him for two big sixes.

On one of those he was caught by Higgins as he ran towards the rope, but then failed to stop. When it happened again, Higgins took a wonderful catch and threw it over his shoulder for Graeme van Buuren to complete the dismissal and leave Gloucestershire with a target of 15 runs to win the game.

Glamorgan opened with two spinners, Salter and Kiran Carlson, and it took nine balls for skipper Chris Dent and Miles Hammond to complete the triumph at 11.48am.

Interim Head Coach, Ian Harvey said:

“We were hoping for a quick finish, but we spoke about being prepared to work hard even into the afternoon. We have been prepared to do that throughout the season and a lot of our games have gone down to the last session,” said Harvey.

“Credit to the players, they keep fighting and believing they can do it. It was great from our point of view it was over early. After the defeat last week the main thing for us was to turn it around. That’s something we have done all season and that was very pleasing.

“We spoke about partnerships all the way through and the boys played exceptionally well. Ben Wells came in at late notice and played very well and Tom Price was exceptional in helping us to get a lead. Sometimes you need a performance like that to kick-start something and it was a really good day for him.

“Zafar was outstanding and took advantage of the conditions. When you look at spinners around the country they do come into their own in the third and fourth days. That’s why we got hold of Zafar and he really showed what he could do in this game. It is not always going to spin, or be in your favour, but he played to the conditions and did that exceptionally well."

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Day Three

Gloucestershire went through the 400 barrier for the first time this season to put hosts Glamorgan under severe pressure as they established a first innings lead of 110 runs on day three of their LV= Insurance County Championship Division 2 clash at Sophia Gardens.

Then they ripped through the home side’s top order to put themselves on course for a magnificent seventh first-class win of the summer. Having reached 39 without loss, Glamorgan ended on 57-6 when the players went off for bad light at 5.50pm – still 53 runs behind going into the final day.

Resuming on 224-4, the visitors picked up maximum batting points on a day when their lower order came up trumps with 195 runs for the last five wickets. Leading the way was Tom Price, whose 71 included nine fours and not only took his team past Glamorgan’s first innings total, but also steered them to 419 all out to leave the home side with a mountain to climb.

Despite the overnight rain the game started on time at 10.30am and Glamorgan went one better than their visitors by bagging a wicket with the second ball of the day. Andrew Salter had gone on the third ball of the previous morning and David Lloyd removed the dangerous Graeme van Buuren with his second ball of the session.

van Buuren failed to add to his overnight score of 65 and departed LBW having added 40 for the fifth wicket with championship debutant Ben Wells. Glamorgan rattled through the nine overs they needed to complete to get to the new ball and then called up Michael Hogan and Timm van der Gugten to turn up the pressure.

Two wickets fell in their first seven overs as Wells was caught at second slip by David Lloyd for an impressive 40 and Zafar Gohar became home skipper Chris Cooke’s third victim behind the stumps off Hogan for 5. That meant Gloucestershire had added 47 runs and lost three wickets in the first hour to cut the deficit to 38.

Ben Charlesworth steered the visitors to the 300 mark in the 96th over and a four from Tom Price off Andrew Salter in the 98th over took Gloucestershire into the lead. Charlesworth had hit six boundaries in his lively 44 before he was castled by Ruaidhri Smith to make it 310-8 in the 101st over.

By lunch the lead was seven runs, but an enterprising 34 from David Payne, which included a straight six and three fours, in a ninth wicket stand of 69 with Tom Price edged Gloucestershire into a handy lead. By the time he was the last man out in the 141st over, Price had raced past his 50 (127 balls) and reached 71 when he was trapped LBW by Michael Hogan.

Hamish Rutherford and David Lloyd had enjoyed an opening partnership of 136 in the first innings and once again started strongly. Rutherford hit the first ball to the boundary and Lloyd did the same on the penultimate ball of the seventh over to take the score to 39.

Then Payne enticed him to play at a ball that left him outside the off stump and Miles Hammond took the catch at first slip. Chris Dent brought his spinner, Zafar Gohar, into the attack for the next over and he got Rutherford caught by Hammond again with the very next ball to make it 39-2.

It got worse as Zafar then removed both Nick Selman and Kiran Carlson for ducks to reduce the home side to 46-4 as the left arm spinner made it 3-3 in his opening four overs. Worse was to follow when Ryan Higgins uprooted Eddie Byrom’s off stump for eight in the 15th over and skipper Chris Cooke went for just six runs.

Pakistani spin ace Zafar Gohar said:

“We had a great day. We had some good partnerships down the order when he batted and then with the ball. Tom Price batted amazingly well to give us something to aim at to bowl them out in the evening. Coming out to bat after 140 overs in the field isn’t easy and we wanted to get into them after that.

“It was a great feeling getting some wickets, especially one with my first ball. I always try to get spin, but it was a great felling to bowl a classic ball to get Nick Selman out. If you don’t get any spin in the first few days of a four day match you can always hope that it will change in the last two days. Now we want to get a quick finish in the morning with some early wickets."

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Day Two

Chris Dent and Graeme van Buuren helped Gloucestershire into a positive position on the second day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match against Glamorgan at Sophia Gardens.

Two superb catches by Glamorgan skipper Chris Cooke, and two wickets in three balls by off-spinner Andrew Salter, stopped Gloucestershire romping to a big second day total.

Cooke dived full length to take one catch with his left hand and then took another in similar fashion with his right to remove Miles Hammond (34) and then Tom Lace (12) off seamers Michael Hogan and David Lloyd.

Responding to Glamorgan’s first innings total of 309 all out, Gloucestershire were going along very nicely until Cooke’s intervention. Skipper Chris Dent and Hammond had successfully negotiated 18 overs before Hammond’s nick brought their first wicket stand to an end at 63.

Lace went with the score on 90 and that allowed Dent and Graeme van Buuren into wade into a home attack that lacked punch and length. They put on 96 for the third wicket, with Dent playing the anchor role until he attempted to ramp Salter and was clean bowled.

He left for 75, his fifth half-century of the season, with the score on 184-3. Two balls later, Ryan Higgins went back to another Salter delivery and was plum LBW to make it 184-4.

Dent was pivotal to his side’s score in their reply to Glamorgan’s 309 all out, sharing a 63 run opening stand with Miles Hammond and then putting on 96 with Graeme van Buuren for the third wicket.

Speaking about the team's performance, Chris said:

“We were pleased to knock them over pretty quickly in the morning. We had worked very hard on the first day and we said that if we carried on in a similar way we would get our rewards. It was nice they didn’t get too many more because we know they bat deep and can be dangerous. It nipped about a bit, and we rode our luck, so it was nice to get through that and set a bit of a platform. We have struggled recently early on, so that was good.

“Graeme van Buuren is a good man to bat with and he did what he has done all year, come out and be positive. He took the attack to them and batted fantastically and hopefully he can kick on tomorrow. I didn’t want to take too many risks while Graeme was hitting the boundaries at the other end. It is still a pretty good pitch at the moment and we need to try to get past them and get a lead.”

Van Buuren was the aggressor throughout and reached his 50 off 87 balls with his 10th four of the day. He was unbeaten on 65 when the players went off for bad light at 4.47pm, with Ben Wells, on his championship debut, contributing a very handy 25 to steer the visitors to 224-4, trailing by 85 runs.

The Glamorgan seamers, other than Hogan, were expensive and rarely troubled the Gloucestershire batsmen. Ruaidhri Smith was the most expensive, conceding 50 runs from his nine overs, while Timm van der Gugten went for 42 off 15. Salter was the pick of the home bowlers and ended with 2-47 from his 18 overs.

Gloucestershire had struck early when play resumed, removing Salter with the third ball of the morning. He became David Payne’s second victim of the innings and the stubborn partnership between him and Eddie Byrom ended on 73.

Smith lasted three overs before he became the seventh wicket to fall as Higgins picked up his second wicket and then Bryon played on to Payne to depart for 78. He hit 10 fours in an innings that lasted three-and-a-half hours.

Van der Gugten conjured up 14 runs before he was the last man out with Glamorgan having limped over the 300 run mark and ended on 309 all out.

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Day One 

Eddie Byrom’s hard fought 60 not out pulled Glamorgan out of an afternoon collapse on day one of their LV=Insurance County Championship clash with Gloucestershire.

The visitors took six quick wickets in the afternoon session following fifties from the opening pair of David Lloyd and Hamish Rutherford.

Tom Price was the pick of the Gloucestershire bowlers, finishing with figures of three wickets for 44 runs, but Byrom held firm to take his side to 264 for six at stumps.

Gloucestershire won the toss and elected to field on the first day at Sophia Gardens but were left frustrated in the opening session by openers Lloyd and Rutherford.

The visitors missed an early opportunity to break the promising partnership when Tom Lace dropped Lloyd in the slips off the bowling of Ryan Higgins.

The Welshman made Gloucestershire rue their missed opportunity as he kicked on to make 50 from 72 balls, including eight fours as Glamorgan headed into lunch at 107 for no loss.

Rutherford was next to bring up his half century as Glamorgan started where they left off after the interval.

But two quick wickets halted their progress as Higgins finally made the breakthrough. First, Lloyd edged to Ollie Price at second slip to bring an end to an impressive innings of 73 runs.

And Higgins’ Welsh Fire teammate David Payne then took the wicket of Nick Selman for just a single run four balls later to put a dent in the Glamorgan top order.

Jared Warner took the big wicket of Rutherford with a vicious delivery to take out his off stump after he scored 62 off 130 balls.

Byrom and Kiran Carlson went about rebuilding, but Carlson edged a Tom Price delivery to the bowler’s brother Ollie in the slips on 17.

After posting 136 without loss, Glamorgan’s four wickets fell for just 43 runs as the visitors continued to turn the screw before tea.

The collapse continued as Tom Price struck twice in quick succession to put his side on top.

Chris Cooke was his second victim when Price clipped the bails before he trapped Dan Douthwaite lbw for a duck for Gloucestershire’s sixth wicket of the afternoon session.

Byrom came in and offered some much-needed stability alongside Andrew Salter for the home side in just his second game for the county as he posted 60 not out off 183 balls to see them through to stumps.

Tom Price said:

“Glamorgan got off to a very good start, we were pretty disappointed with how we bowled, we didn’t build enough pressure.

“David Payne and Ryan Higgins set the tone after lunch and then Jared [Warner] and Zafar [Gohar] built more pressure which led to wickets. We dragged back some momentum, but Eddie Byrom and Salter batted well at the end with the new ball. It’s in the balance.”