Cricket history will be made next week at Cardiff as Glamorgan meet Derbyshire in the first-ever day-night Championship fixture in Wales, with the four-day game against the Peakites at The SSE SWALEC commencing at 2pm on Monday, June 26th.
Given Glamorgan’s history in recent years, it is fitting that the innovation for a round of day-night matches in the Specsavers County Championship should see a game allocated to Cardiff. Indeed, the Welsh ground - on 27thApril 1997 saw the one-day match between Glamorgan and Warwickshire become the first-ever in the U.K. to be decided by the Duckworth-Lewis Method, whilst during July 2009, the Test Match at Cardiff between England and Australia became the first in the U.K., and the first-ever in an Ashes series on British soil, to see floodlights augment natural light.
Glamorgan’s early encounters with floodlight cricket came firstly during the early 1980s in the Lambert and Butler Cup, played at the Ashton Gate football ground in Bristol, before the St. Helen’s rugby ground in Swansea staged a series of matches with a Rest of the World XI between August 1988 and July 1993. Each took place on an artificial wicket laid out adjacent to the half-way line and under the floodlights used by the All Whites, rather than on the cricket square itself. The first of these light-hearted contests, on August 3rd, 1988 was part of the Club’s Centenary Year celebrations, and like the rest of the games, was won by the all-star invitation side.
The first proper floodlit match involving Glamorgan took place at Edgbaston on August 2nd, 1998 with the Welsh county meeting and defeating Warwickshire by 38 runs in a National League encounter. June 13th, 2000 saw the inaugural floodlit contest at Sophia Gardens with Glamorgan, once again, prospering under the floodlights as they defeated Essex by 13 runs.
The game against Derbyshire however, will not be the first time that the Welsh county have been involved in a floodlit Championship match as in September 2011 they took part in a day-night four-day contest against Kent, using pink balls at Canterbury, with Stewart Walters making a fine century to see Glamorgan to an emphatic eight-wicket victory.
Tickets are available for £15 for all three sessions, £10 after lunch and just £5 if supporters attend after tea, with junior tickets priced at £3 throughout.