Glamorgan travel to the Ageas Bowl on Saturday, September 7th (start 12.45pm) for their semi-final match against the Hampshire Royals who are the reigning champions in the Yorkshire Bank40, as the Welsh county seek a place in their first one-day final at Lord's since 2000, and all whilst wearing the retro-shirts in the Club's trademark blue and yellow colours in which they won the 1993 Sunday League title under Hugh Morris' captaincy.
Match Preview
This is the first time that the Welsh county have reached the semi-final stage of a one-day competition since 2004, and they head to Hampshire as the best runner-up in the three groups based on their excellent run rate which was achieved following six wins out of their last seven games, and despite having their home game against the Unicorns on May 12th at the SWALEC Stadium being washed out.
In all, Glamorgan won eight of their twelve games in Group C, with the Royals having won nine of their matches in Group B, including all six of their matches at home at the Ageas Bowl. Their three defeats all came away - at The Kia Oval by nine wickets to Surrey, at Emirates Durham ICG by six wickets and at Old Trafford to the Lancashire Lightning by five runs. In fact, the Royals' last defeat in the competition on their home patch came on August 14th, 2012 when Somerset were the victors by 50 runs in a day-night contest which saw half-centuries from Peter Trego and Jos Buttler, as well as a return of 3/19 by fast bowler Steve Kirby.
Last summer, the Hampshire Royals beat the Sussex Sharks in their semi-final at Hove by eight wickets with Sean Ervine taking 3/36 and both opening batsmen - Michael Carberry and James Vince - posting half-centuries. In the 2012 Final at Lord's, the Royals defeated the Warwickshire Bears by virtue of losing fewer wickets after both Ervine and Jimmy Adams had scored fifties, whilst Chris Wood claimed 3/39.
The Royals' newly-redeveloped headquarters at the Ageas Bowl has not proved to be a happy hunting ground in recent years for the Welsh county, with Glamorgan their last six limited-overs games against the South Coast club in either the 40 (or 50) overs competition and the Twenty20 Cup.
Glamorgan's last win at the Ageas Bowl came on August 15th, 2004 when they defeated Hampshire by three wickets in a contest - reduced by rain to 37 overs per side - which saw David Hemp's occasional medium pace being pressed into action for the closing overs after an injury to Andrew Davies. With all of the other bowlers having reached their quota, David rose to the occasion and delivered a triple wicket maiden as Hampshire were dismissed for 208. Michael Kasprowicz and Alex Wharf each claimed 2/27 before captain Robert Croft set the tone with a vibrant 52 opening the batting, with an unbeaten 79 from Matthew Elliott seeing Glamorgan to their target with an over to spare.
Team news
With Marcus North having returned to Australia, Glamorgan have named a 13-man squad for the semi-final clash against the Hampshire Royals adding Ben Wright, Ruaidhri Smith and Nick James, who on Thursday scored a match-winning century for Glamorgan 2nd XI against Leicestershire 2nd XI - to the other ten players who were in the side that defeated the Yorkshire Vikings at Headingley Carnegie. The Glamorgan squad in full is - MA Wallace, GP Rees, CB Cooke, MW Goodwin, J Allenby, BJ Wright, NA James, GG Wagg, RAJ Smith, AG Salter, DA Cosker, MG Hogan and SP Jones.
