McKay takes three on hard-fought opening day

Graham Wagg continued his good form by making 94 from 113 balls, including seven fours and six maximums, as Glamorgan fought back against Leicestershire on the first day of the LV=CC game at Cardiff.

Glamorgan were bowled out for 278 with Clint McKay (16-2-62-3), Ben Raine (19-4-51-2) and Charlie Shreck (19-2-67-2), who now have 98 LV=CC wickets between them this season, again causing problems.

It was a fine effort after losing the toss on an easy-paced pitch but things would have been even better had it not been for Chris Cooke (84) and Wagg, who also pulled Glamorgan around last week with a career-best 200 at Surrey.

The all-rounder put on 78 for the last wicket with Andy Carter and to put the efforts of Wagg and Cooke into context, the next highest tally was Ben Wright’s 18.

Leicestershire lost Angus Robson before stumps but Matthew Boyce (18 not out) and Ned Eckersley (8 not out) guided the team to 37-1 to leave the game evenly poised.

County showed three changes to the side that lost the last LV=CC game at Lancashire as McKay, Boyce and Tom Wells came in for Umar Akmal, Atif Sheikh and Rob Taylor.

Young all-rounder Wells was a late addition to the squad in place of James Sykes, who was ruled out of the encounter through injury.

The Welsh County brought in Carter for a ‘second debut’ after he rejoined the club on loan from Nottinghamshire, that represented the only switch after an impressive LV=CC win at Surrey last time out.

Glamorgan’s batsmen found themselves on 23-5 in the home NatWest T20 Blast defeat to Sussex Sharks yesterday afternoon and were again in early trouble. McKay marked his return by removing Rudolph through an edge to Niall O’Brien and the captain then saw his side slip to 22-3.

Rudolph’s opening partner Will Bragg, who had struck two boundaries in 17, was run out by Raine from cover point after responding to Wright’s call. Colin Ingram (0) then drove McKay low to Wells at cover.

Glamorgan were 56-4 when Wright played back to the off-spin of Jigar Naik (15-6-48-1) and was lbw before Cooke and Craig Meschede stabilised their position, moving to 39 and 22 respectively as the score progressed to 99-4 at lunch.

Leicestershire continued to make inroads in the afternoon session as although Cooke and Meschede extended their alliance to 59, the latter was lbw to Raine for 24 and Mark Wallace was bowled by McKay for 14.

Wagg, following his heroics at Guildford, gave Cooke useful support. The number eight batsman made his intentions clear by getting off the mark with a four from his fifth delivery before launching a six into the River Taff at long-off next ball.

The pair added 44 before Cooke dragged Shreck on to his wicket having struck eleven boundaries in a well-made 84.

Further wickets fell as Andrew Salter (10) edged Wells (7-1-31-1) to Andrea Agathangelou (3-0-15-0) at slip and Michael Hogan (0) was castled by Shreck but Wagg continued to score quickly and Carter (10 not out) provided vital support.

The all-rounder went on to strike three maximums and a four in the space of three overs in moving to his half-century from 53 balls (3x4, 4x6). At tea, which was taken after 72 overs, Wagg was unbeaten on 68 with Carter on 2 as Glamorgan moved to 242-9.

Wagg continued to monopolise the bowling in the evening session - Carter only faced 19 balls in an innings that spanned an hour and ten minutes - and moved to within six of a century before Raine had him held at long-off by Mark Cosgrove.

County suffered an early blow when leading scorer Robson (11) was unfortunate to play Hogan on to his stumps before Boyce and Eckersley took Leicestershire to within 241 of Glamorgan with some watchful batting.