Glamorgan celebrate the 125th anniversary of their founding in 1888 by travelling to Rugby School to meet the Warwickshire Bears in the Friends Life t20 on Saturday July 6th, with the contest scheduled to get underway at 2.30pm as Marcus North and his team look to continue their winning run in this year's competition.
Match Preview
After the thrilling victory over the Bears on Wednesday evening at Cardiff, the Welsh county will be looking for a fitting celebration of their 125th anniversary by completing another home and away double over the Midlands side following Nathan McCullum's batting fireworks, a level-headed innings from Marcus North and an energetic and dynamic performance in the field, typified by the superb run out from Dean Cosker.
This will be the first time that 1st XI cricket has been staged at the historic school ground, which has also hosted 2nd XI matches arranged by Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, as well as Warwickshire plus a host of England age-group teams. Please be advised that this contest has been confirmed by Warwickshire CCC as a sell-out, and no tickets are remaining for purchase.
As far as Glamorgan are concerned, Warwickshire are very fitting opponents on their anniversary day because they met the Birmingham-based side in their inaugural county match at Cardiff Arms Park in June 1889. The visit to South Wales turned out to be a comfortable victory for the visitor's and, with the home side captained by Edmund David, the son of the vicar of St. Fagans, it was a truly a case of David against Goliath as Warwickshire won early on the second afternoon by eight wickets.
The venue for this Twenty20 match on July 6th is also a very appropriate one, as on the day 125 years after the founding meeting at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff which had been convened by Sir John Llewelyn, a President of the Welsh Rugby Union, the two sides should be going head-to-head at Rugby School - the boarding school where William Webb Ellis is reputed to have invented rugby football whilst a pupil at the famous independent school in 1823.
Over the years, a host of Welsh rugby internationals have appeared with distinction for Glamorgan CCC, with the list headed by two of the greatest names in Welsh sport in Maurice Turnbull and Wilf Wooller. Both featured in the first-ever Welsh rugby side to beat England at Twickenham in the 1932/33 season, alongside fellow county cricketers Viv Jenkins and Ronnie Boon, with Maurice subsequently leading the Club with distinction during the 1930s before Wilf captained Glamorgan to their first Championship title in 1948.
Glamorgan's first-ever full-time professional back in the 1890s was Billy Bancroft, a star full-back with Swansea RFC, whilst in more recent times, Keith Jarrett - a winner of ten Welsh caps and a member of the British Lions party who toured South Africa in 1968 - played twice for Glamorgan in first-class matches in 1967. Aaron Shingler, a member of Wales squad in the autumn internationals, was also previously on the Club's junior staff and played for both the Glamorgan 2nd XI and England Under 19s.
Team News
Glamorgan have once again named an unchanged 14-man squad for the match against the Warwickshire Bears at Rugby School hoping that Jim Allenby who missed the victory on Wednesday with a gastric upset will have recovered. The squad in full is - J Allenby, MA Wallace (wkt), CB Cooke, MJ North (capt), MW Goodwin, BJ Wright, SJ Walters, NL McCullum, NA James, DA Cosker, MG Hogan, WT Owen, GG Wagg and AJ Jones.
