Ingram, Hogan combine in stunning Glam victory

PENARTH are still searching for the first win of the new South Wales Premier Cricket League Division One season following their promotion from Division Two last year after a draw at Ynysygerwn, writes Chris Smart.

The newly-promoted side were put in to bat first and responded with Tom Sidford hitting 79, including 11 fours. Richard Skone backed that up with 56, six fours and one six, before finishing on 226-7 after 50 overs.

Ynysygerwn started the chase poorly with Ryan Sylvester only hitting five and Scott Thornton hitting eight but it picked up with Daniel Davies managing 43 and Nishaanth Dalavaye hitting 35.

Ali Bukkhari and Scott Matthews took three wickets as Penarth sensed victory was within their grasp but the hosts held on to reach 50 overs on 168-9.

Meanwhile, Cardiff followed up their win over Ynysygerwn with a twowicket loss at Pontarddulais.

Alun Thomas and Tom Barry were the leading batsmen for Cardiff with 75 and 74 respectively, although Yvan Grant was only 10 runs off a half century before he was caught out by Lukas Carey, who also took five wickets.

The hosts began their chase on Cardiff’s 263 with Shaun Harris hitting 70, Matthew Aubrey scoring 51 and Cameron Herring bagging 42. And despite the best efforts of Christian Edwards and Mujahid Ilyas, who each took two wickets, Pontarddulais ended on 165-8 for victory.

Elsewhere, Bridgend Town remain unbeaten after chasing down Ammanford’s 219 to win by six wickets on 220-4.

In Division Two, St Fagans earned their first win of the season as they enjoyed a ninewicket victory over Swansea at home.

Jake Peake hit an unbeaten 78 as Swansea batted first but Chris Kelland took 3-38 as they finished on 183-8 after 50 overs. But the trio if Gareth Rees (62), Chris Lawler (57) and Adam Keane (38) eased St Fagans to victory with 184-1 after just 32 overs.

Meanwhile, Miskin Manor suffered a 70-run defeat at the hands of Panteg, who batted first with James Taylor hitting 74.

But chasing 217, Miskin Manor’s Daxesh Dave hit 46 before they were bowled out on 147, with Daniel Wilkinson taking three wickets. GLAMORGAN beat Essex Eagles by a single run to end a miserable week of Royal London One Cup action with a stunning victory.

Michael Hogan held his nerve in the final over to thwart the Eagles’ chase and keep alive the Welsh county’s hopes of reaching the semi-finals.

Hogan needed to restrict Essex to six or less from the final six balls of their innings with 282 the target for victory. And he was unerring, securing the runout of Simon Harmer to set Glamorgan on course for a win that looked unlikely for long periods.

The Man Of The Match award, however, belonged to Colin Ingram. The South African’s highest List A score of 142 was the fulcrum on which Glamorgan’s innings of 281/7 was built.

Ingram plundered the Eagles’ attack to all parts of the field, surpassing his previous best of 130 – also against Essex – with a knock that included six fours and eight sixes.

He came to the crease with Glamorgan in trouble at 20/2 after the early losses of opening pair Jacques Rudolph JONNY Bairstow’s irresistible late hitting gave England a telling advantage as they wrapped up a 2-0 Royal London Series success with an 85-run win over Ireland at Lord’s.

Captain Eoin Morgan (76) and ultrareliable number three Joe Root (73) put England in handy shape with a thirdwicket stand of 140, before Bairstow (72no) and Adil Rashid took over in a total of 328 for six.

England exercised caution through the middle overs – in the Indian Premier League-enforced absence here of three of the players who give their first-choice one-day international line-up such envied power and depth. and David Lloyd.

The former was caught behind by Adam Wheater to give Neil Wagner his first scalp, then Lloyd departed to the same bowler with South African test player Simon Harmer taking the catch.

Ingram rebuilt the innings with the help of Will Bragg. The Gwent batsman made 59 to put together 98-run partnership with Ingram, before being stumped down the leg-side off a Ashar Zaidi wide.

That brought in-form Kiran Carlson to the crease and the young Welshman played an enterprising hand, smoting a quickfire 39 off 33 balls to propel Glamorgan past 250.

Then came the onslaught from Ingram, the Protea embarking a blistering finish to a patience innings with two sixes that flew over the pavilion. He lost Aneurin Donald and Chris Cooke cheaply before eventually falling himself for 142 off 130 balls.

Root and Morgan then departed within the space of three overs, and it therefore fell to the all-Bradford alliance of Bairstow and Rashid to take toll of a flagging attack.

It was enough to put the onus squarely on the touring batsmen on their Lord’s international debut - and despite the flying start provided by Paul Stirling on his home ground, and a half-century from captain William Porterfield (82) back at the venue where he was once an MCC Young Cricketer, a successful chase was not in the offing for long on the way to 243 all out.

After being put in under initially cloudy skies, England’s batsmen did not fluff their lines either – although Morgan had

Glamorgan’s total of 281 was around par, but the failure to reach 300 looked like proving costly when Varun Chopra (124) and Ravi Bopara (56) assembled a partnership worth 108 - that after Chopra had put on 104 in a stand with England captain Alastair Cook.

The Eagles were 214/3 with nine overs remaining and looked overwhelming favourites, before wickets tumbled.

Marchant de Lange and Michael Hogan’s early scalps had pegged the Eagles back early on, and another flurry followed after a fortunate run-out via Craig Meschede’s hand onto the bowler’s stumps that sent Bopara back to the shed.

Chopra’s knock looked to have been enough, but when Ryan ten Doeschate and Ashar Zaidi were bowled in consecutive overs, Glamorgan smelt blood. Tail-enders Neil Wagner and Jamie Porter were tasked with seeing out the victory.

It fell to 36-year-old Hogan to bowl the deciding over and secure a Glamorgan win that stems the flow of defeats. one moment of fortune on 39, when a ball from Stirling trickled back off his pads on to the base of the stumps but did not dislodge the bails.

Otherwise, after he and Root joined forces at 60 for two, England’s progress was largely seamless if at first slightly conservative. Openers Alex Hales and Jason Roy both failed to cash in their handy starts.

Tim Murtagh got one to go up the slope and bowl Hales through the gate, and then Barry McCarthy had Roy driving straight into the hands of short cover in his first over.

Root has put together a wonderfully consistent run of ODI scores this year and took his sequence to five 50s in his last seven innings - among which one of his ‘failures’ was an unbeaten 49 against these same opponents two days ago.

There was an inevitability about his latest run-a-ball contribution, but equally it was not especially surprising either that when the time came to up the ante it was he who failed to beat mid-off with an attempted hit over the top off Peter Chase.

It was a more significant blow to England’s hopes of racking up an intimidating total when soon afterwards Morgan became the second batsman to fall in the first over of a McCarthy spell.

But Bairstow raced to a 38-ball halfcentury, hitting six fours.