Bragg wants Glamorgan to provide test for leaders

GLAMORGAN have been boosted by the return of Will Bragg and Timm van der Gugten to their County Championship squad ahead of the clash with Nottinghamshire starting today at Cardiff’s SSE SWALEC (11am).

The pair missed the Welsh county’s opening three games in the four-day competition through injury, but are in contention to play against Division Two leaders Nottinghamshire.

And after two defeats in their opening three matches, plus elimination from the Royal One Day Cup in the group stages, Gwent-born batsman Bragg wants to see his side step up against the table-toppers.

“It hasn’t been the start in four-day cricket we would have liked, but cricket is a massive momentum game and we can grab some of that from the close wins that we gained over the last couple of weeks,” said the 30-year-old.

“Nottinghamshire are probably one of the stronger opposition we will face in the competition. We just need to go back to basics and make sure we do everything well as a team and not concentrate on what they do.

“First and foremost, we need to look at ourselves and produce the goods that we know we’re capable of doing and if we do that hopefully we’ll come out with a good result.”

Bragg was a key player for Glamorgan in four day cricket last season, hitting a career best 161 not out against Essex and finishing the season as the county’s top run scorer in the Championship with 1,088 runs.

And after scoring 233 runs in five innings back into the 50-over side in the past fortnight — including two half centuries — Bragg is determined to make the most of his time at the crease this term.

“I’m at the age where I know my game and it’s just trying to recreate what I did last year,” he added.

“There’s nothing technically I’ve worked on. It’s just purely the mental side of the game now and making sure I create a gameplan and go on with that.

“It would be nice to emulate last year and even go from there to get even more runs for the side.”

The county also announced new one-year contracts on Thursday for promising Welsh youngsters Jeremy Lawlor, 21, and Connor Brown, 19.

Both players are currently studying at Cardiff Metropolitan University having graduated through the Glamorgan academy and will remain on the playing staff until 2018.

Notts currently sit top of Division Two, but four weeks have lapsed since they were last in championship action.

Despite the interruption to their progress, head coach Peter Moores admits to being a fan of the schedule this season.

“I quite like the way we’ve structured it,” he said.

“We had three championship games and then eight one-day games.

“Now we go into another phase where we have six championship games on the run.

“The lads know this is a massive part of the season, so we’ll get ourselves ready for it and pick up where we left off.

“We won’t take anything for granted. We’ve got to play good cricket again in the longer form of the game.”

Notts go into the match without England duo Alex Hales and Jake Ball and they have had to change their overseas player as well, with James Pattinson having headed off to join up with Australia.

Pattinson’s replacement isn’t exactly like-for-like, with Indian Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara flying in to replace the Aussie quick bowler.

“I’m looking forward to working with him,” said Moores. “I don’t know him personally, but some of the lads here know him a bit better.”