Glamorgan continue their quest for a home quarter-final in the NatWest T20 Blast as they meet the Sussex Sharks at Hove in their penultimate group game in the competition on Thursday, July 28th in a game which is scheduled to commence at 6.30pm.
It`s a three-horse race involving Gloucestershire, Glamorgan and Middlesex for the top two places in the South Group – and a home quarter-final, with Glamorgan two points behind leaders Gloucestershire and two points ahead of Middlesex. Gloucestershire have just one game left on Friday evening, July 29th whereas both Glamorgan and Middlesex have two games left and play on both Thursday and Friday evening.
Glamorgan meet the Sussex Sharks and the Essex Eagles in their closing games – both away from home - whilst Middlesex play the Eagles at Lord’s before travelling to Bristol to play Gloucestershire on Friday. As far as Thursday evening’s permutations are concerned, a victory (or a tie) for Glamorgan at Hove, and an Essex victory at Lord’s would clinch a home quarter-final for the Welsh county.
Glamorgan were victorious when they met Sussex at Cardiff earlier in the competition, but the Sharks devoured Glamorgan both at home and away last summer, with the contest at Hove seeing the home side win by eight wickets at Hove after Tymal Mills had claimed a trio of wickets and Luke Wright had weighed in with a typically muscular and unbeaten 92 to see the Sharks home with plenty of overs in hand.
It had been a similar story in July 2014 when another swash-buckling innings of 66 by Luke Wright followed a spell of 3/14 by leg-spinner Will Beer to see the Sharks to a five-wicket win.
Glamorgan have yet to win a Twenty20 game at the Hove ground having also lost the match in 2010 as Sussex posted a mammoth total of 239-5 with Matt Prior blasting an imperious 117 to lay the foundations of a win by 53 runs. In 2011 at Hove an unbeaten 41 by Murray Goodwin saw the South Coast side to their victory target with four balls and the same number of wickets in hand, and all after Chris Cooke had smashed 42 from just eighteen balls with five towering sixes.
Given their outstanding form in white ball cricket this year, and their collective confidence following a Championship victory last week at Colwyn Bay, plus last Friday’s victory over a lacklustre Somerset side, Glamorgan are well placed to record their first NatWest T20 Blast victory on Sussex soil.