Essex Eagles v Glamorgan
Vitality Blast
The Cloudfm County Ground
Thursday 01 July
7pm start
Essex Eagles continue their endeavours in the Vitality Blast when they entertain Glamorgan on Thursday night at The Cloudfm County Ground.
The home side are seeking revenge for a 7 wicket defeat at the hands of Glamorgan earlier in the competition. The Eagles mustered 153-6 led by young guns Will Buttleman and Michael Pepper who contributed 36 and 29 respectively but in reply, the Welsh County cruised to victory with an over to spare. Nick Selman scored 65 and Marnus Labuchagne 59, with the duo combining for a partnership worth 110, taking their side to within 23 runs of winning before they were parted.
Glamorgan arrive at Chelmsford in good spirits after a Colin Ingram half-century helped beat Surrey by 1 run at The Kia Oval on Tuesday night.
The Eagles also come into the game in good heart having beaten Somerset by 6 wickets under the DLS method on the same night. A maiden T20 half-century from Michael Pepper supported by 49 from Adam Wheater took the hosts to victory after Somerset were dismissed for 153 with Simon Harmer spinning his way to 4/24 whilst paceman Jack Plom returned his career-best T20 figures of 3/31.
Squad:
Pepper’s View:
Michael Pepper currently heads the list of Eagles runs scorers with 206 runs from 9 innings, followed by Jimmy Neesham with 157 runs from 8 innings, Adam Wheater with 154 for 6 innings and Will Buttleman with 152 from 8 trips to the middle.
Pepper’s influential unbeaten innings of 55 on Tuesday night secured only the fourth home victory since the start of 2018 in the competition for Essex Eagles.
He said: “It’s a proud moment to get my first 50 and I’m really thrilled.
“It is special and it’s always much better when it’s for a winning cause.
“The win is up there with our best performances of the season especially after Somerset got off to a decent start. We pulled it back and were very good in the field again and saved a few runs out there.
“We know that we have got ourselves in a position where we have to win most or maybe all of our remaining games so that was a very important win.
“It’s also good that we’ve got another game on Thursday so that we can take the momentum from that win on Tuesday into that and hopefully add another win to keep our interest alive in the tournament.”
Together with Adam Wheater, 80 runs were added in under 8 overs for the third wicket, a defining contributory factor towards the win as the pair superbly paced the run-chase.
“We tried to run them ragged basically, we were always trying to turn ones into twos and generally keeping on top.
“So that was definitely our aim and we communicated well with each other and knew where our boundary options were.
“It’s good batting with Adam, we keep a clear mind and we’re able to run other teams hard and it’s quite relaxed.”
Injury/Absentees News:
The Eagles have named an unchanged 14-man squad for the fixture with Glamorgan.
Opposition:
Coach: Matthew Maynard
Captain: Chris Cooke
Last Year’s Performance: 5th (Central Group)
2020 Leading Runscorer: Andy Balbirnie (255 @ 36.42)
2020 Leading Wicket Taker: Timm van der Gugten (14 @ 14.92)
Overseas players: Colin Ingram (South Africa), Marnus Labuschagne (Australia) & Michael Neser (Australia)
Key man: Colin Ingram
In the last completed game between the two sides, at Cardiff in 2018, Colin Ingram blasted 89 to underpin a six run victory for his side. The hard-hitting batsman had scored a brilliant 114 at Chelmsford the previous year and to date, the South African has scored 426 runs in seven innings with his tally also including an unbeaten 101 at Chelmsford.
Flies under the radar: Timm van der Gugten
The Netherlands international has been Glamorgan’s leading wicket-taker in his past two Blast campaigns for the club.
Blast expectations:
Glamorgan have endured a tough time since reaching Finals Day four years ago, but there is reason for optimism as they aim to get back to the knockout stages. Glamorgan won three of their final four games last summer and their batting is boosted by the return of Colin Ingram. David Lloyd is back to full fitness, Marnus Labuschagne is set to be available for the entire group stage and young gun Kiran Carlson has shown signs he is ready to take the next steps in his career.
Head-to-Head:
Results in recent years between the two teams at Chelmsford are as follows:
23 May, 2014 – Essex won by 4 wickets
19 June, 2015 – Essex won by 16 runs
29 July, 2016 – No Result
16 July, 2017 – Glamorgan won by 5 wickets
13 July, 2018 – Glamorgan won by 2 wickets
16 Aug, 2019 – Match Abandoned
Amongst the memorable performances on the ground was the victory achieved by the visitors in 2018 when they capitulated to 110-8 in pursuit of a 168 target. But Chris Cooke and Timm van der Gugten added 61 in 26 balls to clinch an astonishing win by 2 wickets.
The previous year, Varun Chopra contributed an unbeaten 103 out of 219-4 before Colin Ingram responded with 114 before being run out, but Craig Meschede ensured the South African’s efforts were not in vain when he struck the last ball of the match high over the backward point boundary to seal a dramatic 5 wicket victory. Ingram had also compiled a 56-ball century the previous year only for the match to be abandoned because of rain.
In July 2011, Tim Southee turned in a memorable and devastating performance for Essex Eagles when he recorded the best individual figures in Eagles history with the ball. The New Zealand international took 6/16 that included a hat-trick before Owais Shah posted 60 as the home side secured a win by 5 wickets.
The Eagles have locked horns with Glamorgan on 15 occasions and hold bragging rights with 8 victories and 5 defeats, whilst 2 matches have ended as with no result.
How To Watch:
There will be a Live Stream service from The Cloudfm County Ground, which will be broadcasting ahead of play from 6:30pm via the Essex Cricket Matchzone.
Access via the Essex Cricket Matchzone is available here.
