Northeast points the way as Glamorgan hold their nerve in victory pursuit

GLAMORGAN wrapped up a sixwicket victory over Leicestershire on the final day of their LV= Insurance County Championship match in Cardiff.

The visitors resumed their second innings with three wickets in hand and just 41 runs in front.

An excellent half-century from Ben Mike and 29 from stand-in captain Callum Parkinson took that lead to 149 before the final wicket fell.

Glamorgan got off to a flying start in their pursuit of the victory target thanks to a brisk innings from David Lloyd, but three wickets from Parkinson slowed their progress.

While Parkinson was a consistent threat, the Glamorgan batters chased down the required runs in 40.4 overs with Sam Northeast undefeated on 40.

Leicestershire will be hugely disappointed to have given away such a strong position on day one and will need to work on their ill-disciplined bowling that saw them deliver 25 noballs and concede 82 extras in the match.

With the wicket of Harry Swindells falling to the last ball of day three, Leicestershire were in urgent need of a partnership to give them any chance of setting Glamorgan a challenging target.

That is exactly what they got from Mike and Parkinson.

Mike narrowly missed out on a maiden first-class hundred in Leicestershire’s last match against Middlesex, with the final wicket falling with him stranded on 99 not out.

In this match he carried on that good form as he made a counter-attacking 64 to give his team a target that was potentially defendable.

Leicestershire had looked frazzled during the last session of day three, and Glamorgan were in complete control.

But that was not the case on the fourth morning as Mike and Parkinson put on an eighth-wicket stand worth 88.

Mike’s enterprising innings was ended in the first over with the second new ball when an attempted pull shot got a top edge off Michael Hogan that had serious hang time.

Chris Cooke took the catch after waiting patiently underneath the skier.

It was debutant Andy Gorvin who was given the new ball at the other end and he claimed the first wicket of his career when he had Chris Wright trapped lbw for three.

The innings was wrapped up when Hogan bowled Beuran Hendricks with Leicestershire 266 all out to set a victory target of 150.

Lloyd was in no mood to hang around when the chase got under way as he raced to 36 from just 32 balls.

He was bowled attempting to sweep, the first of three Glamorgan batters to fall playing that shot off Parkinson.

Northeast and Kiran Carlson shared a match-defining partnership in Glamorgan’s first innings and they combined again in a stand worth 35 that got their team within touching distance of the target.

Carlson was dismissed by Scott Steel but Northeast saw his side home.