Review of the Season – 2020

There had been so much to look forward to in 2020 – the Club’s 100th summer as a first-class county – as cricketers in the country and the game itself looked to build on the success of England in winning the ICC Men’s World Cup in 2019. There was going to be the start of The Hundred, the ECB’s exciting new format of 100-ball games, another international against Pakistan at Sophia Gardens plus the return of Marnus Labuschagne as an overseas player and now a regular in the Australian side after his breakthrough summer on the international stage during 2019.

But none of this happened as the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic from March led to the cancellation of all domestic cricket until the first week of August plus the furloughing of 85% of the county’s staff, including all of the coaches and players. When play eventually resumed all of the matches took place behind closed doors with stringent measures put in place to safeguard the health and well-being of players and officials alike. In addition to regular hygiene breaks and the frequent use of hand sanitiser, there was a change to the first-class schedule with the two-divisional Championship replaced by the Bob Willis Trophy – a competition named in memory of the former England and Warwickshire fast bowler who had died during the winter months – with the eighteen counties split into three regional groups and playing a series of four-day games in which the first innings for both teams was restricted to 120 overs.

Glamorgan failed to win any of their matches in this newly-instigated competition with their top-order batting frailties exposed in several games. There were though some pleasing performances not least at Worcester where Billy Root made a painstaking century and Chris Cooke claimed nine victims behind the stumps to equal the Club’s wicket-keeping record. The match at Northampton also saw Callum Taylor record a scintillating hundred on his first-class debut with the young batter emulating the achievement of Matthew Maynard in 1985 by reaching his maiden century with a six. However, the real batting fireworks in this game came from Marchant de Lange who, during Glamorgan’s second innings, struck a century from just 62 balls – the fastest hundred in terms of balls faced in first-class cricket for Glamorgan.

There were some high points for Glamorgan in the Vitality Blast, especially the bowling of Prem Sisodiya, the left-arm spinner, who formed a useful pairing with Andrew Salter who again proved to be an adept off-spinner in the short form claiming 4/20 in the opening encounter against Gloucestershire at Bristol. Although they failed to reach the last eight of the T20 competition, Glamorgan rounded off their season with an emphatic victory at New Road as they successfully chased a target of 191 to defeat Worcestershire. Dan Douthwaite clubbed three sixes in the final over to clinch victory after the foundations had been laid by an opening stand of 120 between Nick Selman, who revelled in his new guise as a white ball opener, and David Lloyd who posted a typically muscular fifty.

With both Marnus Labuschagne and Colin Ingram unable to travel to South Wales, Andrew Balbirnie – the captain of the Ireland side – undertook a stint as Glamorgan’s overseas player in the Vitality Blast. The Dubliner also came within one run of Glamorgan’s first T20 centurion in Wales as he ended unbeaten on 99 as the Welsh county completed the double over Gloucestershire, with Andrew’s array of forceful strokes laying the platform for a 17-run victory.

With all the games taking place behind closed doors, Glamorgan invested heavily to upgrade its live stream facility, allowing fans to watch live match action synched with the BBC Wales commentary and the statistical output from the scorer’s laptop. 587,880 people watched the output, including 21,000 concurrent viewers for the home T20 match with Somerset.