Croft Backs Glamorgan To Climb County Table

Robert Croft is convinced Glamorgan can build momentum from their overdue first County Championship win of the season.

The county’s head coach paid tribute to his team after they secured a four-wicket Division Two victory over Derbyshire at Colwyn Bay on Wednesday.

It was Glamorgan’s first Championship win in 12 months as they passed their target of 196 thanks to Jacques Rudolph (51 not out), David Lloyd (30) and Craig Meschede (36 not out).

The result lifts Glamorgan from bottom of the table to seventh, still 42 points behind second-placed Worcestershire, but with a game in hand.

“We experienced some nervous moments during the run chase, but I thought we fully deserved the win,” said Croft.

“It will give us the confidence to win some more during the remainder of the season. Michael Hogan summed it up as the best win he’s been involved with here and I can understand why because it was full of graft. We spent over 200 overs in the field.

“You can’t put a price on experience and to have Jacques coming in at four – we knew if we had one guy to anchor it, it allowed the other guys to play their natural strokeplay around him.

“The three games leading up to this, we’ve been playing better cricket and we did it here. Full credit to Colwyn Bay Cricket Club for the welcome and the excellent pitch.

“The boys showed great desire over the four days and we can now look forward to the tough challenge from Somerset in the T20 game on Friday”.

Although Glamorgan stuttered in their run chase, losing three wickets in mid innings for 20 runs, skipper Rudolph patiently guided them towards a victory target of 196 from a minimum of 62 overs. He was helped by a late flurry by Meschede who completed a fine personal match with bat and ball.

Earlier, Derbyshire had taken their second innings score to 536, their highest against Glamorgan, before they were all out at 1.15pm.

Billy Godleman and Matthew Critchley put on 113 in 26 overs, with Godleman scoring 106, his sixth century for Derbyshire, before he was well caught by wicketkeeper Mark Wallace down the leg side off Graham Wagg.

It was Wallace’s ninth victim in the game, equalling the club record set by Colin Metson in 1995.

Derbyshire head coach John Sadler said: “We are very disappointed. It’s never good when you lose, so credit to Glamorgan. They worked very hard for this win and they probably deserve it.

“We fought really hard second dig. We said we wanted to bat for two days, to try to put them under pressure so the way we fought back and grafted was superb. I’m proud of them.

“The 20 minutes on day one, when we dropped four catches, ultimately, has put us on the back foot and we didn’t apply ourselves first dig. Those two things have cost us the game.”