Seamers’ success gives Glamorgan the early advantage
GLAMORGAN’S seamers ensured the visitors ended the first day in control of their Specsavers County Championship match against Leicestershire at the Fischer County Ground, Grace Road.
Timm Van der Gugten picked up two wickets in two balls before Michael Hogan and Marchant de Lange each took three wickets after Leicestershire captain Michael Carberry won the toss and chose to bat first.
It looked the right decision on a biscuit-coloured pitch – Glamorgan opted for a toss in the hope of batting first themselves – but Van Der Gugten and Hogan both found just enough movement through the air and off the seam to trouble the Foxes’ top order.
Van der Gugten, who came into the match having picked up 12 championship wickets this season at an average of just 11, was first to strike, having Paul Horton leg before to a delivery which came back in to the right-hander.
The Australian-born Dutch international then made it two in two, Colin Ackermann pushing hard at his first ball and lofting a simple catch to Hogan at wide mid-off.
No further runs had been added when Hogan had Carberry caught behind, a thin edge off a ball he could have left, and it might have been 9-4 had Mark Cosgrove been run out before scoring: the left-hander had given up his attempt to complete an unlikely single when Aneurin Donald’s throw missed the stumps.
Cosgrove was unable to make the most of his good fortune though: having gone to 14, he was trapped leg before by a full, in-swinging delivery which umpire Mike Burns decided had hit pad before bat.
Ateeq Javid battled his way into double figures, only to push at and edge behind a wide delivery from David Lloyd he could have safely left alone.
There was more trouble for Leicestershire when Lewis Hill took his eyes off a short ball from de Lange that didn’t get up as much as he expected it to, and was hit above the elbow. With one ball remaining before lunch he left the field for treatment and the umpires took the players off early.
The procession continued after the break, when Hogan bowled Ben Raine off the inside edge, before Neil Dexter led something of a recovery, reaching his second half-century of the season off 97 balls.
Dexter and Callum Parkinson added 80 for the seventh wicket, but Parkinson edged Hogan to third slip, and Hill – an x-ray having confirmed his arm to be unbroken – was unable to provide Dexter with extended support, de Lange bowling him with a quick delivery which came back in to the right-hander.
Dexter was last to go, an attempt to loft the off-spin of Andrew Salter for six ending in the hands of long-on.
Glamorgan openers Nick Selman and Jack Murphy then put the Leicestershire innings in to some sort of context by putting on an unbroken partnership of 82 off 24 overs.