Statistical Preview: Glamorgan

Derbyshire face Glamorgan in their tenth County Championship game of the season at The Incora County ground this week.

Heritage Officer David Griffin previews the match.

This will be the 137^th scheduled first-class game between the two sides who first met at Cardiff in 1921, a match Derbyshire won by two wickets.

Glamorgan batted first in that match and made 168 before dismissing Derbyshire for just 83. In their second innings the home side succumbed to the bowling of Bill Bestwick who, at the age of 46, took all ten wickets for 40 runs, before lunch, the best innings bowling performance in Derbyshire’s history.

Derbyshire then made 193 for eight in their second innings with Bill Carter making an unbeaten 50 batting at number nine.

Derbyshire have won 48 games and Glamorgan 32 with 56 draws, one of which was a completely abandoned fixture at Chesterfield in 1956.

Derbyshire’s highest innings total of 598 for five came at Swansea in  a drawn game in 2019, while Glamorgan’s best was at Cardiff in 1951 when they amassed 587 for eight which was enough to secure an innings win.

Derbyshire have scored 47 hundreds against Glamorgan, three of them doubles, by Billy Godleman (227) and Peter Kirsten (213 not out and 206 not out).

Kirsten’s 213 not out at Derby in 1980 was a masterpiece. With the first innings scheduled to close after 100 overs – a regulation of its time – Kirsten was 105 not out at tea with 18 overs until the forced closure of the innings. On resuming after the break, Kirsten scored 108 from the remaining 18 overs in a simply majestic display of strokeplay which included 32 fours and five sixes.

Derbyshire’s bowlers have been frustrated by their opponents on more than one occasion, especially at Cardiff in 2023 and at Colwyn Bay in 2016.

New Derbyshire signing for 2024 David Lloyd made a splendid 313 not out at Cardiff at the end of last season, and Aneurin Donald – briefly a loan player at Derbyshire earlier this summer – scored what was then the fastest ever double hundred in the history of the game at Colwyn Bay in 2016. He made 237, reaching his double century off 123 balls and when he was finally dismissed, he had struck a remarkable 26 fours and 15 sixes.

Derbyshire record partnership in these games stands at 291 for the third wicket between Godleman and Tom Lace at Swansea in 2019 although the highest at Derby came at the end of April 2022 when Brooke Guest and Wayne Madsen added 276, also for the third wicket.

Luke Sutton and Brooke Guest are the only wicketkeepers to make first class hundreds against Glamorgan, Guest making two in the game at Derby in 2022, the sole occurrence of a Derbyshire wicketkeeper scoring a century in each innings of a match.

There have been 96 instances of Derbyshire bowlers taking five wickets in an innings against Glamorgan, Cliff Gladwin topping the list having done it eight times, and unsurprisingly the best match figures belong to Bill Bestwick who ended the 1921 game with 14 for 111.

The most recent instance was at Derby in 2022 when Suranga Lakmal took five for 82.

Just one hat trick has been taken by a Derbyshire bowler against Glamorgan, slow left armer David Steele performing the feat at Derby in 1980, while three bowlers have taken three wickets in four balls, Bestwick at Cardiff in 1921, Garnet Lee at Swansea in 1927, and Kevin Dean at Derby in 2002.