After the headway in 1980, there were high hopes for the Glamorgan side in 1981 but these were dispelled as the Club slid down the Championship table and made little impact once again in limited overs cricket. Below the 1st XI, there was plenty of success once again as the side won the Under-25 competition and showed that there was plenty of talent waiting in the wings. With this in mind, Allan Jones and Robin Hobbs made their final county appearances in 1981 as the likes of Hugh Morris and Steve Barwick, a young seamer from the Neath area, were given their first taste of 1st XI cricket.
If there was little collective success in 1981, the summer was a marvellous for the mercurial Javed Miandad who amassed what, at the time, was a Club record 2,083 runs. He also struck eight centuries passing the previous best of seven made by Gilbert Parkhouse in 1950, as well as two double-hundreds. The first came on Royal Wedding Day against Somerset at Taunton as the King of Karachi celebrated the wedding of the Prince of Wales – Glamorgan’s Patron – with a scintillating 200. However, when the ninth wicket final and Robin Hobbs made his way to the crease, Javed was still thirty runs short of this landmark. His advice to his new partner was clear and simple – “Hobbsy, I will not let you face Joel Garner, you just take Colin Dredge!” He was true to his word as the pair added 41 during which Javed reached his double-hundred with a mammoth drive into the pavilion, whilst Hobbs only faced two balls from the great West Indian fast bowler.
The second double-century and undoubtedly the finest innings during his annus mirabilis as almost single-handedly he saw Glamorgan to victory after they had been set a target of 325 in 323 minutes to beat Essex at Castle Park in Colchester. Click here to read more about Javed’s brilliant double-hundred.
As confirmed by the end of season events at Colchester, Glamorgan were something of a one-man band as the summer unfolded with the Pakistani playing with infectious glee, whilst his colleagues failed to reach the same level of consistency. Nevertheless, Glamorgan did the double over Warwickshire as the West Midlands outfit endured a woeful summer besides defeating Yorkshire in mid-July by ten wickets at Sophia Gardens – the first time they had won by that margin against the White Rose side.
After being put in, Glamorgan amassed 343-6 as John Hopkins led the way with a chanceless century, and after the visitors top-order had misfired against the probing seam bowling of Malcolm Nash and Rodney Ontong, the former became the first captain in the Welsh county’s history to invite Yorkshire to follow-on. His opposite number John Hampshire offered stout resistance, but his colleagues found the pace of Ezra Moseley too much of a handful as the Bajan completed a six-wicket haul before Hopkins and Alan Jones saw Glamorgan to their historic victory.
Moseley’s pace and hostility on the docile Welsh wickets had also been seen to good effect earlier in the summer during the rain-ravaged match against the Australians at Swansea over the Whitsun Bank Holiday. The events of the series which became known as ‘Botham’s Ashes’ had yet to unfold as the men in the baggy green caps visited a rather damp South Wales. The unseasonal weather restricted play to just the second day of the contest. Even so, fourteen wickets fell in the overcast and dank conditions at St. Helen’s with Moseley taking a career-best 6/23 to dismiss Rod Marsh’s team for just 147. At one stage, the Australians had been 16-5, but an air of respectability eventually came when Geoff Lawson and Terry Alderman added a quixotic 44 for the final wicket.
Even though the Swansea wicket was typically sluggish, the 23 year-old had confirmed his ability to trouble Test-class batsmen with his speed and swerve through the air, but just as many observers were predicting a bright future for the Barbadian bowler, he sustained a back injury in early August and missed the last seven games as he returned to rest back home in the Caribbean. He returned to inter-island cricket in 1981/82 before a stress fracture was diagnosed in what was a hammer-blow to the Club’s rebuilding programme.
Swansea had also been the venue for an unbroken and record-breaking tenth wicket stand of 140 between Rodney Ontong and Robin Hobbs against Hampshire at Swansea. Hobbs’ quixotic efforts helped to create what, at the time, was the highest unbroken tenth wicket partnership in the history of the County Championship with the gleeful pair, who also enjoyed each other’s company off the field, revelling in their batting exploits which saw the veteran spinner end unbeaten on 49.
Glamorgan began their one-day campaign in 1981 in good form, with five wins out of the first nine matches in the Sunday League, but this was followed by a sharp decline with eight successive defeats. Javed’s own form mirrored this curate’s egg of a summer, with the Pakistani making a match-winning century at Grace Road to set up a 57-run victory over Leicestershire before losing form in the second half of the summer as Glamorgan slid down the table. Their form in the other two competitions was little to write home about as just one of the Benson and Hedges Cup matches was won, whilst in the Gillette Cup, a facile victory over Oxfordshire was followed by a 30-run defeat to Hampshire at Sophia Gardens.