Glamorgan have qualified for the quarter-finals of the NatWest T20 Blast after a stellar season in the shortest format. We await confirmation of who they will be playing, but the whole T20 campaign has been a brilliant one. There are quite a few key reasons why Glamorgan have made the knockout stages, Peter Miller discusses.
Colin Ingram
While Colin Ingram’s troublesome knee injury has prevented him from making any appearances in the County Championship, his form in white ball cricket this season has been nothing short of remarkable. Ingram has 375 runs in the competition (with two group games still to go) including four fifties at an otherworldly strike rate of 163. If not for his runs Glamorgan would have not made it this far. He will be crucial in their efforts to secure a home quarter-final and a day out at Edgbaston for the finals.
Bowling, bowling and more bowling
Glamorgan have had an abundance of bowling options going into T20 matches, regularly having nine men who could be given the ball in the team. Against Somerset the only players in the XI that haven’t regularly bowled this season were ‘keeper Mark Wallace and Aneurin Donald. Captain Jacques Rudolph has had the luxury of chopping and changing the bowling depending on conditions and form. It has made a massive difference.
There is some risk involved in this team make-up, with Graham Wagg or Craig Meschede batting at six there is a huge amount of pressure on the top-order to get the runs needed for victory, but so far they have managed that. The all-rounders in the lower-middle order can blast Glamorgan over the line, but the top five have tended to do the bulk of run-scoring.
Pace, pace and more pace
Last year with Michael Hogan and Graham Wagg opening the bowling there were times where batsmen could charge down the pitch and hit square of the wicket. This season the Glamorgan management wanted to acquire a pace bowler as an overseas pro who could keep batsmen on the back-foot.
In Dale Steyn and then Shaun Tait they have got exactly that. Wickets in the bowling powerplay generated by the paceman have been vital to keeping the opposition batsmen in check.
The real bonus for Glamorgan this year has been the immediate success of Dutch international Timm van der Gugten ,who has also bowled some rapid balls in the opening overs en route to the top of the Glamorgan wicket-taking charts in the competition.
Home advantage used to perfection
The pitch in Cardiff has rarely looked pretty in 2016 but it has played pretty well. But it has taken teams some time to get used to the occasional two-paced nature of the surface. Glamorgan, as the home team, have not had that same problem and the ability to judge the pitch quickly has led to them winning all-but two of their home games this season. It is for this reason that getting that home draw for the quarter finals is so vital to Glamorgan’s chances of a first Finals Day appearance since 2004. If they can play at home, and win the toss so they are chasing, they are capable of beating any opponent that the North Group has to offer.
David Lloyd Comes Of Age
2016 has been the making of David Lloyd. Even before the T20 Blast had begun he had scored his maiden first class ton, but his promotion to opener in the limited overs formats has seen him kick on again. Lloyd was pushed up the order having done the job well for the second XI. And he was an immediate success. There have been two half centuries this season, and both of them big ones. The 81 he made against Sussex was a fine innings, but the really impressive knock came against Kent.
In a match that was reduced to 16 overs a-side, Glamorgan batted first (not their preferred tactic) and Lloyd demolished the opposition. He brought up his fifty off 26 balls and went on to make 97 not out at a strike rate of almost 200. The only thing that stopped him from making his first ever T20 hundred was those four overs that were lost to rain. Jacques Rudolph has started talking up Lloyd’s England prospects. If he keeps up this level of hitting over the rest of this season and some of the next, then who knows…