Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
The decision by Hugh Morris to relinquish his position as Managing Director of England Cricket and returning to Glamorgan in 2014 as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Cricket was met with great approval, not least that a former professional cricketer and one of the Club’s finest players of recent time was back at the helm.
Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
There were still many challenges for Morris to face, not least the indebtedness which was still rising and causing headaches when planning the way forward. Amongst his first tasks was to appoint Toby Radford, the Caerphilly-born batter who had played for Middlesex and Surrey before becoming assistant-coach to the West Indies as Head Coach, with the new regime duly seeing Glamorgan consolidate on their success in white-ball games and coming within a couple of runs of appearing at T20 Finals Day.
The T20 campaign also saw one of the most thrilling Twenty20 games ever seen at the Cardiff ground and contained an almost miraculous closing over from Michael Hogan. It followed a blistering counter-attack by Darren Stevens who looked like turning the game on its head, as he struck half a dozen sixes before falling to a catch on the boundary’s edge. It left his side needing three runs from the final over, but up stepped the ice-cool Hogan to concede just two singles, besides claiming two further wickets and then amidst high drama, the final delivery saw new signing Jacques Rudolph complete a run out as Kent’s tail-enders tried in vain to sneak a match-winning bye as the game ended in a tie.
Glamorgan then leapfrogged Surrey into third place after victory at The Kia Oval. After being put in to bat, the sublime artistry of Rudolph plus the muscular aggression of Chris Cooke saw Glamorgan to a useful total, before an energetic fielding display kept the home batsmen in check. Three good catches were held in the deep as Surrey opted for the aerial route and, with thirteen needed from the last six balls, Hogan yet again bowled an exemplary final over to seal a four-run victory. After thrashing Gloucestershire by eight wickets, Glamorgan’s reward was a visit to Manchester to meet the Lancashire Lightning who had topped the Northern Division.
The quarter-final however went into the reserve day after a deluge had turned the Old Trafford ground into a lake and, when play began, the visiting bowlers restricted the home side to an under-par total, before Rudolph gave the innings some momentum after a further rain break. But the daffodil county wilted from 92-2 to 114-7 as Jordan Clark, bowling straight and full, took four wickets in eight balls and all without conceding a run. Despite Rudolph’s valiant efforts, the task of scoring fifteen runs from the final over proved to be too much as they agonisingly fell short of their target by the slender margin of a single run.
Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
Top of Glamorgan’s wish-list for 2014 had been a return to Division One of the Championship and a ten-wicket demolition of Surrey, courtesy of an inspired bowling spell by the feisty Wagg, in the opening Championship contest at The Oval ramped up these expectations. But Glamorgan’s next win in red-ball cricket did not come until mid-June and was followed by just one more, against Derbyshire in September as Glamorgan rarely posted challenging totals, especially in the first innings. Ironically, the Championship innings of the summer came from Will Bragg who showed great skill in defying Worcestershire’s Saeed Ajmal to save Glamorgan from a likely defeat.
But the lack of four-day success was not down entirely to the batters as their bowling unit, apart from Hogan, also struggled. Hogan acted as both spearhead and a willing workhorse in the attack claiming, in all formats, 98 wickets besides in just his 20th Championship appearance taking his 100 first-class wickets. But he was often a lone threat as John Glover followed Huw Waters into early retirement whilst Mike Read, who the previous year had been training with other fast bowlers in England’s development programme, also departed after knee operations.
As far as the spinners were concerned, Dean Cosker bowled with his customary nous and control whilst Kieran Bull, born in Pembrokeshire and raised in Carmarthenshire, showed great promise as an off-spinner during the closing weeks. By this time, though, thoughts of promotion had long disappeared as had hopes of another appearance in a List A Final at Lord’s.
Their campaign in the competition, extended in 2014 from 40 to 50 overs, had begun with back-to-back victories over Middlesex and Surrey. Decisively, Glamorgan then lost their next three games and, with a falling run-rate, it extinguished hopes of making the knockout stages. The only highlight of the summer in the Royal One-Day Cup was a majestic and record-breaking 169* by Rudolph against Sussex at Hove as he posted the Club’s highest score in List A cricket.