It’s been a heady 48 hours for Glamorgan’s players and supporters with the Welsh county - after the completion of the zonal games in the Twenty20 competition - securing a home quarter-final at The SSE SWALEC against Yorkshire, starting at 7pm on Thursday, August 11th.
With Glamorgan finishing in second place in the South Group, they will meet Yorkshire who ended in third spot in the North Group.
Glamorgan have never met Yorkshire in the Twenty20 competition, but the Tykes have played at The SSE SWALEC before having been the losing finalists in the 2012 competition when the Cardiff ground proudly hosted Finals Day. They won the first semi-final, defeating the Sussex Sharks by 36 runs after Jonny Bairstow had blasted an unbeaten 68, but they lost in the final to the Hampshire Royals for whom Dimitri Mascarenhas produced an outstanding bowling performance. David Miller made an unbeaten 72 but the target of 151 proved to be too many as the South Coast side won by ten runs.
Yorkshire also played a role in Glamorgan’s quarter-final appearance in 2008 as the Welsh county had been a late call-up to the last eight after the Yorkshire Vikings were disqualified having fielded an ineligible player. Glamorgan had won their final group match after defeating the Worcestershire Royals by six wickets and had left the New Road ground believing that they were out of the competition, only to be re-instated a week or so later by the ECB for the match at Chester-le-Street.
The Durham Dynamos won by 44 runs, as like their most recent appearance in the quarter-finals against the Lancashire Lightning in 2014, Glamorgan failed to make it to Finals Day, although their defeat at Old Trafford was by the slender margin of one run. 2004 was the only other time Glamorgan have reached the quarter-finals and on that occasion at Cardiff, against the Warwickshire Bears, Glamorgan won by five wickets.
A crowd of around 8,500 were present to see a stirring Glamorgan victory as the side – for the one and only time so far – clinched a place at T20 Finals Day at Edgbaston. This had seemed an unlikely scenario after the Bears had set the Welsh county a target of 159. Glamorgan slipped to 2/2, but Matthew Elliott found a noble ally in David Hemp, as they rebuilt the innings with a partnership of 118 for the third wicket as Glamorgan eased to victory with an over to spare.
This victory saw Glamorgan head on August 7th, 2004 to Finals Day at Edgbaston where they met the Leicestershire Foxes in the semi-final. However, Darren Maddy blitzed a quick-fire 72 from 40 balls to see his side to a decent total of 165/5 from their 20 overs. The Welsh county then lost their top-order during the first six overs, and despite the best efforts of David Hemp and Mark Wallace, they could not wrest back the initiative as the Foxes won by 21 runs.