Derbyshire continue their four-day campaign following a fortnight’s break since their last game at Northampton with a trip to Wales to face Glamorgan in a day/night fixture.
Heritage Officer, David Griffin, looks at the statistical background to the game.
Glamorgan was the 17th county to join the County Championship in 1921 following their formation in 1920, and the last until Durham over 70 years later.
Derbyshire’s first game against Glamorgan was at Cardiff Arms Park in June 1921, and while most of Derbyshire’s games in Wales would take place in the capital city, they have also visited Abergavenny, Colwyn Bay, Llanelli, Neath, Pontypridd and Swansea.
Over the course of 128 games between the two counties, Derbyshire have prevailed on 46 occasions, with Glamorgan winning 30 matches, 51 drawn, and just one abandonment.
Derbyshire’s last win in Wales was at Cardiff during the 2012 promotion season, when Jon Clare inspired the visitors to victory with remarkable match figures of 11-57.
While the most recent encounter, at Colwyn Bay in 2016, saw the hosts win a high-scoring game by four wickets when the match highlight was Aneurin Donald’s 123-ball double hundred – the equal-fastest double century in the history of the game. Derbyshire’s 2nd innings total of 536 in the second innings of that match is their highest in clashes between the two counties.
Derbyshire batting highlights over the years include two unbeaten double centuries – both by Peter Kirsten, in 1978 and 1980, a hundred before lunch by Adrian Rollins in 1997, and a century on debut from Dominic Hewson at Cardiff in 2002.
While Clare’s aforementioned bowling analysis was exceptional, it couldn’t match the legendary Bill Bestwick’s feat of taking 10-40 in that very first encounter between the two counties back in 1921.
Bestwick’s analysis remains the best in an innings for Derbyshire, and is even more remarkable considering that he was 46 years old and achieved the feat in a single morning session. He’d already taken four wickets in the first innings and claimed a match total of 14-111.
David Steele is the only player to claim a hat-trick for Derbyshire in these games, while the youngest debutant was Tom Knight, who made his first appearance at Cardiff one day short of his 18th birthday in 2011.
Of the current staff, Billy Godleman and Wayne Madsen have both previously scored hundreds against Glamorgan, while both Will Davis and Tony Palladino have claimed five wickets in an innings.
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