2003 was a summer of frustration as Glamorgan failed to consolidate on their National League success and never gained any momentum in Championship cricket to mount a promotion bid into Division One. The season had begun promisingly in the National League, winning their first five matches, but they then fell away, winning only one from the next six, whilst the Welsh county also exited the early rounds of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy.
After a slow start in the Championship during April and May, Glamorgan record successive victories over Northamptonshire and Derbyshire in early June. The victory at Northampton was set up by some penetrative seam bowling by Michael Kasprowicz and David Harrison, whilst there was also an impressive 73 in the second innings from Jonny Hughes, the young opening batter. Hughes also contributed to the victory over Derbyshire at Swansea but, back on his home patch, it was Robert Croft who produced a fine all-round performance, making 84 before a six-wicket haul forced the visitors to follow-on as they subsided to an innings defeat.
Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
The Welsh county continued in winnings ways in July as they beat Somerset by 110 runs at Sophia Gardens but just when things appeared to be on the up for Croft and his team, Glamorgan lost heavily at The Rose Bowl in what was regarded as the defining game of the summer. Centuries by Dale and Maynard gave the visitors the upper hand and by the end of the second day, Hampshire were following-on still 138 runs in arrears and just six wickets remaining. But a dramatic turnaround then took place against a tiring attack as debutant Richard Hindley, recruited from club cricket, made an unbeaten century before Chris Tremlett took 6/51 to rout Glamorgan for 104 as Hampshire celebrated a remarkable victory.
There had been no joy either for the Welsh side in the second of their two warm-up international games against England at Sophia Gardens. Although Michael Kasprowicz filleted England’s middle-order, removing debutant Jim Troughton and Andrew Flintoff for ducks as England slipped to 44/4, their position was restored by half-centuries from Marcus Trescothick and Anthony McGrath. Croft launched the run chase with a forthright fifty, but the two big guns in the middle-order – Maynard and Powell – were dismissed for 9 and 7 respectively, and with the England bowlers giving little away, wickets fell at regular intervals as the Welsh side were dismissed for 227 in the 49th over leaving England the victors by eight runs.
At an individual level, 2003 was a frustrating one as well for Simon Jones as the young pace bowler faced an uncertain future after a horrendous injury in Australia after breaking into the England Test team, only to rupture knee ligaments whilst sliding to field the ball in the opening Test of the Ashes series in Brisbane.
Indeed, Jones’ rise into the England team had been one of the other success stories for Glamorgan over the previous three years. After impressing in county games and being included in England’s various development programme, Jones had made his Test debut at Lord’s against India in July 2002 and after some hostile spells was included in the England party for the Ashes tour.
2003 was also a summer of change: as far as Glamorgan were concerned, Steve James suffered yet another knee injury during the opening Championship match and handed over the reins to Robert Croft, with the prolific opening batter being forced into retirement at the end of the year. At the national level, tan important change saw the inauguration of Twenty20 cricket, with the new competition replacing the Benson & Hedges Cup.
Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
The Dragons’ first match in the new format duly took place against the Northants Steelbacks at Sophia Gardens on 16 June with the first over of the all-action competition ironically seeing Michael Kasprowicz bowl a maiden. But the visiting batters soon got into the groove and inflicted the first of three successive defeats during the opening week of the competition with five group games in the space of nine days. It wasn’t until the fourth game, against the Worcestershire Royals at Cardiff that the Welsh county got into winning ways and following a display of destructive hitting by Maynard and Powell with the former making 72 from 55 balls, and the later weighing in with an unbeaten 66 from only 40 balls.
Owen Parkin`s lively seam bowling then accounted for both Worcestershire openers, before the Dragons’ spin-twins, Croft and Dean Cosker, slowed the visitors progress. As the runs dried up, and the run rate climbed even higher, captain Croft was also able to give valuable experience to young all-rounder Ryan Watkins, as well as opening batsman Dan Cherry, whose off-cutters duly ended the Worcestershire innings as the crowd of 3,500 toasted Glamorgan’s sole victory in the first season of the new format.
Photo Credits – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
A series of defeats in the National League during July and August ruled out a repeat of the gripping end to the season twelve months before and the only major highlights during the closing weeks came from the bowling of Kasprowicz. The ever-willing Aussie ended the year with 77 wickets at 21 apiece with his finest hours coming during two remarkable games with Durham during which he twice took nine wickets in an innings. In fact, had it not been for Dean Cosker catching Michael Gough off his own bowling at Cardiff, Kasper might have taken all ten. He ended with 9/36, before a month later at Chester-le-Street taking 9/45 as David Harrison was the party pooper having claimed the wicket of Nicky Peng.