The Best Era Ever?
By Edward Hall
September 17 2002
Three major trophies in the last 10 years, and in the last two years, a complete dominance in one-day league cricket that has seen the club lose only 5 games.
By Edward Hall
September 17 2002
Three major trophies in the last 10 years, and in the last two years, a complete dominance in one-day league cricket that has seen the club lose only 5 games.
This sounds like a record of Yorkshire or Surrey, but it is in fact the list of triumphs of Glamorgan, the unfashionable Welsh county, who, before the 1990s, only had 2 Championship titles to their name.
Add to this the trip to Lord’s in 2000, and we now start to appreciate what a brilliant era of Glamorgan cricket this has been. Critics will argue that county cricket is not as strong as it was previously, and that the introduction of several one-day competitions has devalued trophies, but for the 2,000 supporters at Canterbury, and thousands more around Britain listening on tenterhooks to Edward Bevan’s commentary of the final ball, this trophy was far from meaningless.
Whether the last 10 years has been the most successful ever is questionable. This era is certainly coming to an end now. Hugh Morris and Steve Watkin, loyal servants to the Glamorgan cause through the 1990s, have already left, and though there are county pros still playing at the age of 40, the chances are that Steve James, Matthew Maynard, Adrian Dale and Robert Croft will all have retired in five years time. During their time though, these players were involved in the best team in the country, when Glamorgan won the Championship. They can no longer lay claim to that, but their performances this year showed that they can still dominate one form of the game.
One of the signs of a good cricket team is a settled cricket team, and after a few glitches working out who was to bat at the top of the order, Glamorgan’s one day team has been fairly predictable from week to week. Robert Croft settled back at the top of the order with Ian Thomas, after David Hemp and Keith Newell both failed early on in the season. The middle order is certainly full of specialist batsmen, Maynard, James and Dale. Michael Powell settled in at 3 throughout the season as well, and played key innings in the day-night game in Cardiff and at Canterbury. The one major change from last season’s success was Mark Wallace behind the stumps. When Maynard donned the gloves, it certainly gave the team more flexibility, but this season, it was soon discovered that Wallace could be a useful batsman in his own right, improvising shots into strange areas in the last 5 overs.
In the bowling department, Michael Kasprowicz meant that the void left by Steve Watkin did not large as look as it might have done. Andrew Davies continued his improvements from the previous season, and it can only be a matter of time before he is playing in the 4-day team on a regular basis. Dean Cosker has featured heavily as Robert Croft’s spin twin, and it often they who can calm things down in the middle of the opposition’s innings.
This team though is not static, and there is still some tough competition for places, with David Hemp’s breezy knock on Sunday showing what class is still in Glamorgan’s 2nd XI. David Harrison’s emergence, and the fact that he kept Darren Thomas out of the team at Canterbury, certainly bodes well for the future. Whether this team can develop further in the next couple of years, and win a trophy at Lord’s is debatable, but it would be a fitting end to an area that has already heralded more trophies than one could have imagined.
Add to this the trip to Lord’s in 2000, and we now start to appreciate what a brilliant era of Glamorgan cricket this has been. Critics will argue that county cricket is not as strong as it was previously, and that the introduction of several one-day competitions has devalued trophies, but for the 2,000 supporters at Canterbury, and thousands more around Britain listening on tenterhooks to Edward Bevan’s commentary of the final ball, this trophy was far from meaningless.
Whether the last 10 years has been the most successful ever is questionable. This era is certainly coming to an end now. Hugh Morris and Steve Watkin, loyal servants to the Glamorgan cause through the 1990s, have already left, and though there are county pros still playing at the age of 40, the chances are that Steve James, Matthew Maynard, Adrian Dale and Robert Croft will all have retired in five years time. During their time though, these players were involved in the best team in the country, when Glamorgan won the Championship. They can no longer lay claim to that, but their performances this year showed that they can still dominate one form of the game.
One of the signs of a good cricket team is a settled cricket team, and after a few glitches working out who was to bat at the top of the order, Glamorgan’s one day team has been fairly predictable from week to week. Robert Croft settled back at the top of the order with Ian Thomas, after David Hemp and Keith Newell both failed early on in the season. The middle order is certainly full of specialist batsmen, Maynard, James and Dale. Michael Powell settled in at 3 throughout the season as well, and played key innings in the day-night game in Cardiff and at Canterbury. The one major change from last season’s success was Mark Wallace behind the stumps. When Maynard donned the gloves, it certainly gave the team more flexibility, but this season, it was soon discovered that Wallace could be a useful batsman in his own right, improvising shots into strange areas in the last 5 overs.
In the bowling department, Michael Kasprowicz meant that the void left by Steve Watkin did not large as look as it might have done. Andrew Davies continued his improvements from the previous season, and it can only be a matter of time before he is playing in the 4-day team on a regular basis. Dean Cosker has featured heavily as Robert Croft’s spin twin, and it often they who can calm things down in the middle of the opposition’s innings.
This team though is not static, and there is still some tough competition for places, with David Hemp’s breezy knock on Sunday showing what class is still in Glamorgan’s 2nd XI. David Harrison’s emergence, and the fact that he kept Darren Thomas out of the team at Canterbury, certainly bodes well for the future. Whether this team can develop further in the next couple of years, and win a trophy at Lord’s is debatable, but it would be a fitting end to an area that has already heralded more trophies than one could have imagined.
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