2015 was an historic year for cricket in Wales as, for the first-ever time, England won an Ashes Test on the Principality’s soil with Australia beaten on the fourth afternoon. Besides being a commercial success, Glamorgan were heartened to move towards a more stable financial position after three primary creditors agreed to a 70% writedown but, on the domestic front, 2015 was another disappointing year and proved to be a season of two halves – with Glamorgan unbeaten in the County Championship until 15 July, winning four matches out of eight, before losing four and drawing four, as well as narrowly failing to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Twenty20 competition.
The opening Test of the 2015 Investec series was once again accompanied by plenty of Welsh hwyl and Celtic passion, with banners in the thoroughfares of the city, welcoming visitors to the city for the iconic sporting contest. Right from the outset, the game was a very Welsh affair, and right from their first day in the Welsh capital, the England players and management had warmly embraced the Celtic passion that had engulfed the city and its visitors from all over the globe, with the entire England squad visiting Tafwyl, the annual festival held in the beautiful grounds of Cardiff Castle to promote the use of the Welsh language in the capital city. Whilst the batting of Joe Root and Moeen Ali, plus the outstanding bowling from the England side, were key factors in England’s victory by 169 runs, the fervent atmosphere and bucket loads of Welsh hwyl also played a role.
Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cicket Archives.
Whereas everything went to plan from day one in the Test Match, Glamorgan were dealt a blow before the first ball was bowled in anger, with Michael Hogan sustaining a hamstring tear whilst playing State cricket in Australia. After dipping into the loan market, the services of Nottinghamshire’s Andy Carter were secured for the first month of the season, and the tall pace bowler duly took four wickets in the opening Championship contest at Grace Road – a game which saw Jacques Rudolph, who had taken over as captain from Mark Wallace, share a double-century stand with Will Bragg in the first of four draws.
Glamorgan’s first win of the summer came at Cardiff against an injury-ravaged Essex side with Rudolph again leading from the front with a five-hour vigil on a wicket with erratic bounce. Craig Meschede then produced the standout display against Northants at Cardiff, striking a quick-fire hundred and helping Glamorgan enforce the follow-on before wrapping up victory shortly before lunch on the final day.
Guildford was Glamorgan’s next destination, to meet a Surrey side who then reduced the Welshmen to 106-6, still 300 runs in arrears on the second day, before the contest was dramatically turned on its head by a remarkable and destructive 200 by Wagg, with his explosive innings resulting in a haemorrhage of runs as he struck 21 fours and a record 11 sixes, to give the Welsh county a 31-run lead. Despite tiredness, Hogan then claimed a five-wicket haul, before Bragg and Ben Wright shared a sober stand, which saw the target of 247 runs reached with a session to spare.
Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
It was a victory which marked Glamorgan down as potential candidates for promotion, and they made it four wins from four games by beating Leicestershire by 137 runs. But things fell apart during the second half of the season, starting at Chesterfield where they enforced the follow-on but failed to bowl out the Peakites a second time. Collective moral also took a massive blow at Colwyn Bay where the Glamorgan bowlers were put to the sword by the Lancashire batters, as Alviro Petersen and Ashwell Prince added a record 501 runs and broke Welsh hearts as the two South Africans laid the foundation of an emphatic innings victory.
The Gloucestershire seamers then bowled their side to victory at Swansea, before the Glamorgan batting failed again at Old Trafford before a mighty rear-guard action by Rudolph and Chris Cooke saw the game end all square after Glamorgan followed-on. A maiden Championship hundred from Colin Ingram against Kent could not prevent a heavy defeat before a season which had promised so much fizzled out with draws at Northampton and Bristol.
It was a similar story of excitement followed by disappointment in the Twenty20 campaign where Rudolph and Ingram feasted on some modest bowling at The Oval in the opening game, adding 141 in a dozen overs as Glamorgan reached the giddy heights of 240-3. After defeats to the Essex Eagles and Hampshire the side showed their true character by bouncing back to record back-to-back victories over Middlesex, Gloucestershire and Somerset, with the middle game at Bristol seeing Rudolph show that finesse has a place in the short form of the game as much as force, as the Glamorgan captain posted his first Twenty20 hundred.
It was a similar story of excitement followed by disappointment in the Twenty20 campaign where Rudolph and Ingram feasted on some modest bowling at The Oval in the opening game, adding 141 in a dozen overs as Glamorgan reached the giddy heights of 240-3. After defeats to the Essex Eagles and Hampshire the side showed their true character by bouncing back to record back-to-back victories over Middlesex, Gloucestershire and Somerset, with the middle game at Bristol seeing Rudolph show that finesse has a place in the short form of the game as much as force, as the Glamorgan captain posted his first Twenty20 hundred.
These victories took Glamorgan into second place in the group table, but their ambitions of a quarter-final place were then dealt a series of blows as they lost to the Eagles as well and at the latter both the Sussex Sharks and Surrey. It meant that the Welsh county had to win their last two games in order to progress to the quarter-finals. It was mission accomplished at Tunbridge Wells as they defeated the Kent Spitfires in a last-ball thriller, with the victory set up by further batting heroics by Wagg, who biffed a quick-fire fifty before Hogan, for the second year in a row, delivered a nerveless final over in which some smart fielding by David Lloyd on the boundary’s edge to the final delivery saw the Welsh county home by one run.
But the weather had the final say as the final batch of group games took place as a band of heavy rain crossed the south of England. Abandonments elsewhere meant that Glamorgan had to secure a victory and fortunately the rains relented over Cardiff for a five-over contest. But, with two of their overs yielding just a single run and Wagg being felled by a short ball, the Welsh county were unable to gain sufficient momentum to post a winning total as Gloucestershire won with seven balls to spare.
Opposite – David Lloyd. Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.