Reece form continues as Derbyshire make strong start

Luis Reece continued to wage his personal battle against the Glamorgan bowlers as he equaled the Derbyshire record of six successive fifties in first class cricket as he plundered his third century of the summer against the Welsh county at Sophia Gardens. 

Glamorgan’s decision to put Derbyshire into bat on a green wicket at in the Welsh capital came back to haunt them as the visitors settled in and made hay, ending the first day on 308-2. 

The 33-year-old Reece was at the heart of the action all day long as he put his side in control with an unbeaten 139 in 96 overs. He put on 80 for the first wicket with Harry Came and then 180 for the second with Brooke Guest. 

Leus du Plooy joined him for the final 75 minutes of the day and ended on 22 not out as his contribution to an unbroken third wicket stand of 48. 

The home side are due to say goodbye to their chief executive, Hugh Morris, captain, David Lloyd, and head coach, Matt Maynard, and were hoping to push for a final to potentially take them up to third int eh table. But the bowlers were once again made to toil in the field by the left-handed Reece as he took his tally of first-class runs against Glamorgan this summer to 471. 

He scored 139 and an unbeaten 201, his highest score in first-class cricket, in the drawn game at the County Ground, in Derby in July. He also scored 69 against them in the One Day Cup clash in Debry last month. 

Reece’s hot streak began in the home clash with Durham between 19-22 July when he scored 54 in the second innings. From there he notched his twin centuries against Glamorgan before taking 77 off the Gloucestershire attack and 86 against Sussex. 

In his latest success, he reached 50 off 74 balls, his century off 175 balls and currently has 16 fours and a six to his credit. Fellow opener Harry Came looked comfortable until he was caught at the wicket by Chriss Cooke off the bowling of Zain-ul-Hassan in the 27^th over. The next departure was 50 overs later when James Harris had Brooke Guest trapped lbw four runs short of his century. 

Glamorgan tried seven bowlers throughout the day and four of them went for more than 50 runs. 

Luis Reece on his third century against Glamorgan this summer:

“It is always nice to be consistent. In my breakthrough season I had seven on the bounce at Lancashire. It is nice to keep putting in performances because I’ve left some runs out there this summer.

“I’ve not had the hundreds I’d have liked. I could quite easily have made five or six hundreds, which I know sounds greedy, but you’ve got to try to make the most of it when you are in form because there is always a bad patch around the corner.

“It’s all about setting up games of cricket for Derbyshire to try to win, and there haven’t been enough of those this season. We’ve been on the wrong end of a couple of draws and we haven’t had enough wins in our win column.

“There has been a bit of variable bounce from the wicket. The nature of the wicket is that half of it is dry and the other half is damp, so it couple change during the match.

“There should be a bit of wear and tear in it to bring our bowlers into the game if we can bat well tomorrow. I hope to go big from 139.”

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