There had been several changes to the Club’s management at the end of the 2010 season, so with a new captain (Alviro Petersen) and a new coach (Matthew Mott) in their ranks, plus the return of Simon Jones for T20 cricket after a brief spell with Hampshire and a second Test Match at Cardiff, it was hoped that 2011 would be a better one allround.
On the international front, there was good news when the ECB confirmed that Cardiff would host an Ashes Test again in 2015 as well as T20 Finals Day during 2012, but the Test Match between England and Sri Lanka in the last week of May 2011 had proved to be a financial flop with the Club sustaining a loss estimated at £1.2m, whilst on 31 July, the Club announced that Paul Russell was standing down as Chairman on health grounds .
As far as domestic cricket was concerned in 2011 there were collective disappointments as Glamorgan ended up in sixth place whilst, once again, they did not feature in the knockout stages of either of the one-day competitions. After losing to Leicestershire in their opening Championship game, James Harris led Glamorgan to victory over Gloucestershire but it was to be almost a month before the next win, as the Welsh county struggled for consistency, with an innings win over a careworn Kent side at Cardiff followed by a nine-wicket victory at Lord’s.
It might have been three in a row had the weather not interrupted the match with Surrey at The Kia Oval where Alviro Petersen posted a double-century with his innings of 210 containing a five, a six and a seven to go along with plenty of ones, twos, threes and fours! Early in his innings, Petersen scored seven after playing a shot for three runs, but the return from Tom Maynard, who had joined Surrey at the end of 2010, the Surrey wicket-keeper and sped away for four overthrows. Later, the South African reached his hundred courtesy of a five as another overthrow, this time by Gareth Batty, from a quickly run single saw the ball run away to the ropes.
Opposite – Alviro Petersen. Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
Glamorgan ended the first part of the season in second place in the table but their bid for promotion took a knock in the back-to-back games with Derbyshire as the Peakites recorded their first-ever home and away double. The game at Derby was a curious affair, described by one Pressman as having more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel. After getting themselves into a decent position, Glamorgan saw the home team’s final pair counter-attack in extraordinary fashion as Jon Clare and Mark Turner added 104 in 14.3 overs. In reply, Mark Wallace and Jim Allenby each scored hundreds as the pair added 217 for the sixth wicket before Glamorgan’s tenth wicket pairing of James Harris and Will Owen also added 121 in 21.2 overs as for only the second time in a first-class match, a pair of last wicket stands had added over a hundred. For Glamorgan, though a second innings batting collapse meant the efforts of Harris and Owen had been in vain.
A more robust batting performance against Essex at Cardiff, built around an opening stand of 184 between Peterson and Gareth Rees saw Glamorgan enjoy the better of a draw, before Will Bragg’s maiden hundred at Colwyn Bay saw Glamorgan defeat bottom-of-the-table Leicestershire. But Glamorgan were unable to build on this as they lost against Gloucestershire at Bristol before drawing their final home game against Middlesex at the SWALEC Stadium.
There were some encouraging signs in the Clydesdale Bank40 with Gareth Rees scoring hundreds in both the home and away games with the Essex Eagles. Petersen and Rees shared an opening stand of 199 against Lancashire at Colwyn Bay before Stewart Walters added to the carnage with a 19-ball fifty as Glamorgan cruised to a 69-run victory but in the next game against the Unicorns at Wormsley, the Dragons nosedived alarmingly, losing eight wickets for 36 runs with a plethora of run outs as they ended nine runs short of their target and their captain unbeaten on 93 in a match which they should have won.
In the bowling department, Will Owen also delivered some feisty spells, including a return of 4/31 against Somerset at Cardiff and was called up to bowl in the nets ahead of England’s First Test against India. His progression in white-ball cricket was a huge bonus as the seam bowling department had been badly affected by a spate of injuries. David Harrison’s twelve-year career had ended before a single ball had been bowled following the diagnosis of a serious back injury whilst Adam Shantry also retired during the summer after operations on both knees.
The Glamorgan Dragons also found the winning formula to be elusive in the Twenty20 cricket where they won just five out of sixteen matches. They won their opening contest against Middlesex at Cardiff with Chris Cooke making an explosive debut with a trio of huge sixes before their spin-twins of Robert Croft and Dean Cosker exploited a dry surface at Richmond as Glamorgan completed the double over Middlesex. The pair were also in frugal mode against the Sussex Sharks at Cardiff where a Glamorgan victory was only achieved from the final ball as Rana Naved pulled Graham Wagg for what looked like being a match-winning four only for Petersen to sprinted along mid-wicket ropes and prevented the ball from bouncing over, with his gymnastic parry being smartly returned to wicket-keeper Mark Wallace.
The nadir of the T20 season came on 5 July as Somerset’s Arul Suppiah took 6/5 to bamboozle the Dragons batsmen as they were dismissed for 98, before a volley of fierce drives from the blade of West Indian Kieron Pollard saw them cruise to their target and ended the Dragons chances of progressing to the quarter-finals.
The first-class season ended in mid-September with the ECB deciding that the match against Kent at Canterbury should be a day-night contest, with a variety of pink and orange-coloured balls being used. A century from Stewart Walters saw Glamorgan to an eight-wicket victory, but by this time, Petersen had decided to move on with Mark Wallace ,who at Canterbury had become the Club’s first specialist wicket-keeper to score 1,000 first-class runs in a season, being appointed as the Club’s captain for 2012.