Having gone through their Championship-winning season in 1997 with a settled squad of 14 players and no major injuries, it was almost inevitable that Glamorgan would suffer the opposite during 1998 as they went without Waqar Younis, for all bar four of the Championship games, besides using nine different combinations of opening batters, three separate wicket-keepers plus a raft of uncapped and unproven youngsters.
The Club’s management had known that they would be without Hugh Morris, who had retired having accepted a technical position with the ECB, but to lose Waqar, their talismanic fast bowler with a degenerative condition of the elbow was both an unexpected and massive blow as they looked to regain their Championship crown. Captain Matthew Maynard also missed a month of the season with a groin injury and for only the second time in thirteen seasons failed to reach 1,00 runs, whilst Steve Watkin who having manfully shouldered a workload others would have winced at, was side-lined with various side and back ailments. Test calls and a knee injury also meant that Robert Croft only played in nine Championship matches and like Maynard, underwent surgery at the end of the season.
Given the long list of ailments, it was to Glamorgan’s credit that they recorded four Championship wins, including a 141-run victory at Bristol in their first defence of the title. Needing 231 to win, Gloucestershire were reduced to 27-5 by Darren Thomas and Watkin before Gary Butcher polished off the tail as Glamorgan won with a day to spare. Thomas’ bowling played a decisive role in the second victory, but this was not achieved until the last week of June as Glamorgan beat Nottinghamshire in a rain-ravaged game at Trent Bridge by 46 runs.
Their victory though also owed much to yet another fine hundred by Steve James who the previous week had made a long overdue debut in Test cricket, having received a late call-up for the Second Test against South Africa at Lord’s after Mark Butcher was ruled out on the eve of the game with a thumb injury. Later in August, Steve received another SOS from the England camp ahead of the Test with Sri Lanka at The Oval as Mike Atherton, his close friend from their days at Cambridge went down with a back spasm.
By this time, James had also played a role in Glamorgan’s third Championship victory with a polished 147 at Chelmsford as the Welsh county wrapped up an emphatic 216-run over Essex. An even larger margin of victory saw Glamorgan end the season by defeating Somerset by 298 runs in the season’s finale at Sophia Gardens after Watkin and Owen Parkin had reduced the visitors, chasing a target of 392, to 57-5 in the first ten overs.
But there should have been more than these four Championship victories, with Glamorgan losing the initiative at Northampton where after an imperious double hundred from James and supporting hundreds from Mike Powell and Tony Cottey, they allowed the home side, resuming 391 runs in arrears, to score 712 with Mal Loye making 322. James had also posted a masterly hundred in June against Worcestershire at Cardiff as together with Cottey the opener had seemingly put his side well in contention to score 282 in 58 overs. But in a spell of four wickets for three runs in the space of nine balls, David Leatherdale had Cottey caught at short extra-cover before removing Mike Powell with his next delivery. In his next over, the Yorkshire-born all-rounder removed both Croft and James as the game ended all-square.
But it was not all doom and gloom during 1998 as the season saw Simon Jones, the son of former England bowler Jeff, make a pleasing Championship debut against Durham whilst against Lancashire at Colwyn Bay, Wayne Law, the nineteen year-old opening batsman, made a century in only his second appearance, memorably pulling Wasim Akram off the front foot for four to complete his maiden hundred. In their one-day games, Glamorgan met with little success in the knockout competitions, but after a quiet start, they won six of their last eight games in the Sunday League.
The competition had also seen Darren Thomas took 7/16 in the match against Surrey at Swansea as the all-rounder completed what remains the best bowling figures in one-day cricket for the Welsh county, and all against a side who boasted eight international cricketers in their line-up. Surrey had appeared to be the favourites after restricting Glamorgan to 184, but they were soon in trouble as Owen Parkin took three early wickets, whilst his new ball partner Steve Watkin was in typically miserly form, giving little away and putting Surrey well behind on run-rate. Thomas then entered the attack as first change and took the next seven wickets. Bowling a full length and gaining some swing, he took six in the space of 21 deliveries at a cost of just four runs before some Surrey limped to 77 all out.
The Sunday League programme also saw Glamorgan’s inaugural floodlit match in the one-day League, with the day-night game taking place in early August at Edgbaston. Despite interruptions for rain, it ended in victory for Glamorgan under the Duckworth-Lewis Method by 38 runs after they dismissed Warwickshire for 146 with the spin combination of Croft and Cosker stifling the home team’s ambitions.
At the end of the 1998 season the Club, flushed with financial support after their Championship victory, had made good progress with their multi-million pound redevelopment of the Sophia Gardens ground. With outline planning permission having been secured from Cardiff City Council in November 1997, fund-raising began for the first phase, namely the National Cricket Centre, including a seven-lane indoor school and an administration block on the site of the former scorebox at the Cathedral Road end of the ground.
The lion’s share of the funding duly came from a £3.25 million grant from Sportslot – their first major award to a sporting project in Wales – supplemented by a £250,000 grant from the Sports Ground Initiative to improve spectator seating, plus a Lord’s Taverner’s grant, sponsorship and a generous donation of £100,000 by an anonymous Premier Member. With agreements having been secured with Hyder Consultants and Amey Building Ltd., the shell of the new buildings were in place by the end of 1998 and there were broad smiles in the committee room when it was confirmed that Cardiff had been awarded games in the ICC Cricket World Cup in 1999.
