McKay claims six on opening day
Sun 17 Apr 2016
Glamorgan versus Leicestershire, Specsavers County Championship, Day 1:
SCORECARD | Available through ESPN Cricinfo HERE
INTERVIEW | An interview with Clint McKay by BBC Radio Leicester’s Richard Rae is available to download HERE
HIGHLIGHTS | The highlights of the first day’s play is available HERE
LIVE | Ball-by-ball commentary available through the BBC HERE and a live stream for day two comes courtesy of Glamorgan’s website HERE
REPORT | Clint McKay claimed a six-wicket haul on the first day of the season as the Specsavers County Championship game at Glamorgan moved along at a decent pace.
The Welsh County scored 348 inside 90 overs at the SSE SWALEC and McKay felt it was a good performance by the Leicestershire attack on a good surface.
He said: "We think the score is even par, the wicket is quite nice and there wasn't much sideways movement off the wicket for most of the day. There was a little bit of swing around but all in all, it is a good wicket. As long as you're patient and take your time, you can dig in and bat really deep.”
The Glamorgan innings ran with similar themes as four home batsmen posted half-centuries without getting beyond 64, there were three significant partnerships formed among three wicket clusters, and nine of County’s wickets came courtesy of McKay (6-72) and Charlie Shreck (3-73).
A tricky four-over passage of play was safely negotiated by Paul Horton (6 not out) and Angus Robson (4 not out) meaning Leicestershire will resume on 15-0 in the morning.
The team showed made two changes to the side that drew at Loughborough MCCU as McKay and Jigar Naik came in for Aadil Ali and Zak Chappell. Horton, Neil Dexter and Mark Pettini were presented with their club cap and tie before the start of play on their first-class debuts for Leicestershire.
Much has been made of the visiting team’s opportunity to forego the coin toss in the Specsavers County Championship but County captain Mark Cosgrove decided to take the traditional route.
It came as little surprise; the best part of 700 runs were scored for the loss of six conventional wickets in 165 overs during Glamorgan’s game against Cardiff MCCU on the ground earlier this week and this pitch looked to be another good one. The bowlers could not even look up for encouragement as the match was to start with a perfect blue backdrop.
In a quirk of this great game of ours, Cosgrove found himself in exactly the same position had the coin not been flipped, as it came down on the wrong side from Leicestershire’s perspective and Jacques Rudolph opted to strap his pads on.
Runs initially came freely as the captain and James Kettleborough advanced the score to 24 but McKay dismissed the opening pair in the sixth over. Former Northants batsman Kettleborough (18) was first to leave, trapped lbw after attempting to play through the on-side, while Rudolph (6) nicked to a gleeful Niall O’Brien.
With Glamorgan at 25-2 and two new batsmen getting acquainted at the wicket, suddenly it appeared that it may have been a good toss to (take and) lose. But Bragg and Cooke steadied the Glamorgan ship in a partnership that yielded 84 in 24 overs before lunch.
Cooke (48 not out) was the aggressor, twice striking a trio of boundaries in an over, while Bragg offered solid support. The left-hander found the fence on three occasions in advancing to 35 off 74 deliveries as Glamorgan progressed to 109-2 from 29 overs at the interval.
The start of the afternoon session saw both Cooke and Bragg post their half-centuries in recording what proved to be the highest stand of the innings (107). The right-hander was first to the landmark from 76 balls (8x4) while Bragg’s 50 came off 100 deliveries and contained five boundaries.
Leicestershire kept the ball in good areas and both set batsmen fell in consecutive deliveries. Cooke (56) drove Shreck to Naik at gully at the end of the 36th over and Bragg (50) also departed after edging, this time McKay snapping up the wicket with the first ball of his 10th offering as Angus Robson safely pocketed the chance at second slip.
McKay made it four for the innings when bowling Aneurin Donald (1) and Glamorgan were now in a spot of bother at 133-5. Having lost two wickets for one run in the same over earlier, Glamorgan had now lost 3-1 in nine deliveries.
County sensed an opportunity but sensible batting from Lloyd and Wagg staved off the immediate threat and the duo became more expansive as they shared 98 between lunch and tea. Lloyd passed 50 (73 balls) by striking his eighth four at the start of the 56th as part of an over that yielded 15, included a consecutive four and six for Wagg.
Dexter was the unfortunate bowler on that occasion but the experienced seamer hit back as part of an excellent piece of cricket just before tea. Lloyd (59) became the third batsman to be dismissed in the fifties when nicking one that nipped away nicely, O’Brien completing the job with an excellent low diving catch.
Another frustrating alliance developed between Wagg (64) and Craig Meschede (44), who have caused County problems in the past. This time they added 64 for the seventh wicket before Shreck took a terrific one handed return catch in the last over before the new ball was due.
Glamorgan added some useful late order runs but, all told, the last four wickets fell inside a ten-over period. McKay returned to take the second cherry and he completed a five-for by trapping Mark Wallace (9) lbw.
Meschede then holed out to Cosgrove in the deep to give McKay a sixth success but it was not to be a first-class career-best for the Victorian as Shreck wrapped up the innings by having Timm van der Gugten (11) held at the wicket.
It left Michael Hogan on 21 not out and the dangerous Australian seamer went on to send down a couple of overs before stumps, but Horton and Robson were unmoved to ensure County had a good end to an absorbing opening day.
Leicestershire bowling figures: McKay 20-3-73-6, Raine 19-4-70-0, Dexter 16-6-55-1, Shreck 19.3-3-72-3, White 7-0-35-0, Naik 8-1-36-0.
