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Glamorgan vs Derbyshire - Specsavers County Championship

Thursday 21st July 2016
Written by Danny Painter

20-year-old Will Davis took career-best figures of 7-146, before Chesney Hughes and Billy Godleman both hit centuries in the second innings, but Derbyshire were narrowly beaten by four wickets by Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay.

Davis’ seven were not enough to stop Glamorgan amassing 518 in their first innings with Aneurin Donald scoring the equal-fastest double-century in first-class history.

In reply, Derbyshire were dismissed for 177 and asked to follow-on. They made a better fist of their second innings, scoring 536 all out, with Hughes and Godleman hitting tons, in addition to 90 from Wayne Madsen and 70 not out from Matt Critchley.

The hosts were able to chase down 196 to win in the final two sessions of the match but Derbyshire were in with a shot of victory until the closing stages of the chase, which was completed with four wickets to spare.

The match was memorable for a variety of reasons – it was only the second time that Derbyshire had played at this venue, the previous time being just fifty years earlier in 1966 when they were the first county to visit Colwyn Bay for a Championship match. In addition, the match was played in extreme heat throughout, the temperature soaring above 30 degrees on the third day, although there were some dramatic thunderstorms overnight afterwards. These were not enough to prevent play resuming on time on the fourth morning. The most memorable event of all, however, was the innings played by the 19-year old Donald.

Glamorgan won the toss and chose to bat first on a good-looking surface, but Derbyshire’s bowlers made them work hard for their runs and would have been pleased to reduce Glamorgan to 96-3 in the thirty-fifth over. This, however, saw the entry of young Donald who played a quite remarkable innings for one so inexperienced. He went on the attack quite early in his innings and luck was on his side – several times he played shots which went through or over the slips and he was dropped when he had scored seventeen.

But Donald kept playing aggressively and reached his fifty from 38 balls and his hundred with a six from the 80th ball he had faced. Now he accelerated, and took full advantage of the shortish straight boundaries, reaching his 150 only 24 balls later and then his double hundred from a total of 123 balls – equalling the world record for this achievement. He continued until he was caught on the long-off boundary for 234 from 136 balls, having hit 21 fours and 15 sixes. His innings had only started 30 minutes after lunch and, when he was out, there were still another 11 overs left to play.

There were several good supporting innings for Glamorgan so they were able to reach an all-out total of 518 after only half-an-hour’s play on the second morning. Will Davis had bowled with pace and taken his first first-class five-wicket haul before he finished with a career-best 7-146. All looked to be going to plan for Derbyshire when they batted as Hamish Rutherford and Billy Godleman added 52 for the first wicket, but then four wickets fell in the space of eight overs. The wickets continued to tumble after lunch but Harvey Hosein batted as well as anyone for an undefeated 27.

Derbyshire were asked to follow on 341 runs behind. Godleman was ill, so Hosein was asked to open the batting in his place and again he played soundly as he compiled a steady 26 against the new ball attack before he was caught from a leg-glance. Hughes helped Rutherford to see out the second day with Derbyshire on 78-1 after 33 overs.

Derbyshire’s task on the third day was to bat all day with a view to continuing their innings deep into the last day.   To their credit they managed to achieve the former as they added 335 runs for the loss of five wickets. The main contributors were Hughes who recovered some of his early season form. He reached his hundred from 188 balls with 13 fours and a six and shared a third-wicket partnership with Madsen who was out for another well-crafted 90 off 175 balls. Skipper Godleman played one of his typical determined innings and he was not out 66 at the close having been partnered by Critchley for the last nine overs of the day.

With Derbyshire now leading their hosts by 72 runs, Godleman and Critchley continued their resistance for a further 17 overs before Godleman was caught down the leg-side as he only managed to edge an attempted hook. He had passed his hundred from 149 balls with 11 fours and a six. Critchley, meanwhile, had played the bowling with some comfort and his innings of 70 not out caused Glamorgan more than a little anxiety.

Play continued for 17 minutes into the lunch hour as nine wickets were down at the scheduled time of 1pm, but Derbyshire’s last four wickets fell while40 runs were added, thus leaving Glamorgan 62 overs in which to score 196 runs needed to win. They started briskly with an opening stand of 56 but, when four wickets fell for the addition of 29 runs, Derbyshire were in with a shot. It was not to be, however, as the home captain, Jacques Rudolph played watchfully while Lloyd and Meschede played their shots with the latter finishing the match with a flurry of boundaries to take Glamorgan home with four wickets to spare.

Glamorgan 518 (104.5 overs) (AHT Donald 234, CAJ Meschede 66*, WD Bragg 60, NJ Selman 57, AO Morgan 40, DL Lloyd 30; WS Davis 7-146, AP Palladino 3-76) and 200 for 6 (45.4 overs) (JA Rudolph 51*, MA Wallace 40, CAJ Meschede 36*, DL Lloyd 30, NJ Selman 26; WL Madsen 2 -24)

Derbyshire 177 (52 overs) (HR Hosein 27*, HD Rutherford 26, BA Godleman 24, SJ Thakor 24, MJJ Critchley 23; CAJ Meschede 3-33, AG Salter 2-15, GG Wagg 2-51) and 536 (162.1 overs) (CF Hughes 122, BA Godleman 106, WL Madsen 90, MJJ Critchley 70*, HD Rutherford 45, SJ Thakor 29, HR Hosein 26; GG Wagg-93, AO Morgan-48, MG Hogan-112, AG Salter 2-122)

Glamorgan (24 points) beat Derbyshire (3) by 4 wickets

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