Glamorgan Fightback To Control Third Day

By Jon Culley

Leicestershire toiled away in the field, but bat dominated ball on day three at Uptonsteel County Ground.

For the second year running, this fixture prompted a revision of the record books as Glamorgan mounted an impressive fightback against Leicestershire on the third day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match.

It may not have been quite in the same league as last July, when Sam Northeast made his historic unbeaten 410 and combined with Chris Cooke to add an unbroken 461 in the highest sixth-wicket partnership in English first-class cricket, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Cooke, who backed up Northeast with an unbeaten 191 on that occasion, was again at the heart of it, sharing a stand of 211 with Australian pace bowler Michael Neser that enters the record as the highest for the eighth wicket for Glamorgan against any opponent.

Neser, seeking a third first-class career hundred to go with his 330 wickets, didn’t quite make it, dismissed on 90, but Cooke was still there on 121 not out as Glamorgan closed on 446 for eight, giving them a first-innings lead of 39 to take into the final day, although it is difficult to see the match producing a positive result.

Leicestershire were handicapped by an injury to Ed Barnes, one of their five seam bowlers, who reported for duty with a swollen ankle, ruling him out of bowling for the remainder of the match.

Nonetheless, Glamorgan knew it would need to be “a fighting day”, as opening bat Eddie Byrom described it on Friday evening, if they were to force a way back into the contest after closing the second day five wickets down and still 243 runs behind. In the event, they met the requirement.

Nightwatchman Timm van der Gugten was a casualty within the first half-hour, caught off Chris Wright when he pulled in the air to midwicket, where Rishi Patel ultimately dived to take a good catch after covering some ground to get under it.

The dismissal brought together Northeast and Cooke. With Northeast in scratchy form so far this season, another record-breaking alliance between these two was never really on the cards, but in adding 39 from 21 overs of head-down application they began to draw the sting from a Leicestershire attack faced with a pitch that was growing increasingly benign.

Northeast fell caught behind, slashing at a widish ball from Mikey Finan.  His 40, from 134 balls, is actually his highest score in nine innings since his 410. That left Cooke to be joined by Neser, the Australian seamer who can probably be classed as a genuine all-rounder, whose instincts are generally to play positively.

Finan, the Leicestershire bowler most likely to offer scoring opportunities, too often gave Neser width and the batter rarely missed out as Glamorgan reached lunch with the follow-on all but avoided.

The afternoon session was the first in the match with no wickets to fall, which confirmed how much the playing surface had settled down after a couple of drying days. Lewis Hill, the Leicestershire captain, rotated his bowlers regularly in the hope something might happen, but there was little in the way of obvious help for either of his spinners.

Cooke and Neser were able to add 120 runs, growing their partnership to 151 from 376 for seven at tea, just 31 short of parity. Wright posed problems at times but not enough to induce a fatal error as both batters went past fifty, Cooke’s coming off 118 balls with four boundaries, Neser reaching the milestone from 94 deliveries when he pulled Wright for his seventh four.

The pair continued in much the same untroubled vein into another elongated final session, setting an eighth-wicket partnership record for Glamorgan against Leicestershire when they passed the 166 achieved by Gwyn Richards and Malcolm Nash at Swansea, going ahead of Leicestershire’s 407 in the 140th over, before Cooke completed the 11th hundred of his first-class career with a scrambled single off leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, having hit five fours from 220 balls faced.

The arrival of some heavy cloud prompted the floodlights to be fired up, after which the ball began to do more through the air.  Neser perished to a superb delivery from Wright that he could only really admire as his middle stump lay on the ground behind him before bad light took more time out of the game, ending a scheduled 104-over day 13 overs early.