Mason Crane Gives Glamorgan Hope Of Final Day Victory

By Paul Jones

Glamorgan kept their hopes of victory alive in their Vitality County Championship match against Northamptonshire in Cardiff thanks to two wickets from Mason Crane in the final session.

Glamorgan had extended their first-innings lead to 211 thanks to late order runs from Crane, James Harris and Andy Gorvin allowing them to add to their overnight total.

A score of 99 from Ricardo Vasconcelos and 55 not out from Luke Procter saw Northamptonshire claw themselves back into this match but the wickets from Crane pushed Glamorgan back into the stronger position.

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Northamptonshire will begin the final day of this match on 236 for four, just 25 runs in front with six second-innings wickets in hand.

They will be hoping for another partnership to help them save this game but Glamorgan will be looking for early wickets so they can push for the win.

Crane said: “We’re in a strong position, I thought we deserved a few more wickets than we got, but we’ve got a really good chance to win the game and at the start we’d have taken this.

“For the lads to get nearly 500 was an amazing effort, and you’re always going to be in a strong position 200 ahead.

“It’s standard when someone gets near a milestone like that (Vasconcelos approaching a century) you make it as hard as you can, so that was a nice wicket to get.”

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Glamorgan resumed 111 runs in front of Northamptonshire and Crane and James Harris set about extending that in the opening hour. Crane is having his best season as a batter in first-class cricket. He made the second half-century of his career, the first coming in the away fixture against these opponents earlier in the season.

Crane and Harris shared a stand of 63 that took Glamorgan into a sizeable lead, but the concern for the home side would have been the ease with which their lower order were scoring runs. The prodigious seam movement that was a feature of the first two days had all but disappeared and the final wicket stand between Crane and Andy Gorvin put on another 53 runs to take Glamorgan to 490 all out.

Northamptonshire’s innings had a solid start thanks to a stand of 59 between Emilio Gay and Vasconcelos. Gay was dismissed by Gorvin when he edged through to Chris Cooke for 24. Prithvi Shaw had made it to 23 before he edged a low catch to Cooke to leave Northamptonshire 95 for two.

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Vasconcelos was steady throughout but as the day progressed the odd ball did misbehave. There were one of two balls from the Glamorgan seamers that bounced more than he expected but it wasn’t until the final session of the day that there seemed to be a real threat with the ball thanks to Crane’s leg spin. He bowled a long spell in the evening session where the ball began to turn.

The stand between Procter and Vasconcelos took Northamptonshire exactly level with Glamorgan when Crane made the long-awaited breakthrough when he trapped Vasconcelos LBW for 99. When Crane had Rob Keogh caught at short leg first ball Northamptonshire were four wickets down in their second innings and exactly level with Glamorgan’s first innings score.

Procter and Lewis McManus took Northamptonshire to the close without any further damage but there is still a long way to go before the visitors can consider this game safe.

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