This is the first part of a series, with a look back at a memorable game from the past against each of Essex’s 2024 home Vitality Blast opponents. First up, Essex’s epic victory against Glamorgan in 2022, when the Eagles racked up a record T20 total in the Chelmsford sun.
Essex (254-5) beat Glamorgan (185-7) by 69 runs
The Cloud County Ground, 2nd July 2022
Scorecard: View Here
“Oh, they’re going big. They are going big!”
So said Dominic Cork at the moment of Adam Rossington clubbing Michael Hogan for four over mid-off in the powerplay of Essex’s innings during their home tie with Glamorgan in 2022.
As it turned out, he was spot on, as an hour later, the Eagles had racked up a record-breaking total, smashing their previous best score in T20 cricket as the boundary was peppered again and again.
Dan Lawrence’s 71 from just 37 deliveries was the standout, but a 23-ball 58 from Paul Walter and a swift 45 off 23 by Adam Rossington were significant contributions too.
It all added up to likely leave Glamorgan captain Sam Northeast feeling rather hot under the collar, and not just from the roasting temperatures, after he had opted to field first having won the toss.
While a big score looked on the cards, the final total, with its utterly colossal nature, seemed improbable even into the latter stages of the Eagles’ innings.
Rossington’s contribution set the Eagles on their way, with the powerplay yielding 65 runs and Glamorgan only able to take one wicket, that of Robin Das.
Even as Rossington hit 14 off one Andrew Salter over, the end of the fielding restrictions brought about a natural deceleration in Essex’s batting, and the score stood at 98-3 after halfway.
However, perhaps some of the most destructive, high-intensity hitting Chelmsford had ever seen unfolded from that point onwards.
Starting with Lawrence and Walter, 61 runs came off the next five overs, including an utterly monstrous maximum by the latter off Salter that had the ducks in the River Can paddling for cover.
Yet, even with the score up to 159-3 with five still to go, that would appear comparatively pedestrian after what was about to unfold.
Prem Sisodiya was hammered by Walter for four sixes to start the 16th, and although the crowd ironically jeered his single off the fifth ball, Lawrence put the cherry on top with another maximum.
That meant the over had totalled 31, but Essex were not done yet; even though Walter fell to Hogan, his replacement Daniel Sams hoisted three more consecutive sixes to take the score past 200.
With Chelmsford now whooping with delight, Lawrence continued to thrill with a further 24 off the 18th, before Simon Harmer, who hit three of his four deliveries to the boundary, signed off with a flourish.
The eye-watering innings was underlined by the statistics that every single Essex batter struck at a rate above 164, while all but one Glamorgan bowler – Jamie McIlroy – had an economy rate above 11.
When South Africa famously conceded 434-4 to Australia in Johannesburg in 2006, Herschelle Gibbs is said to have remarked at the halfway point that the Australians were 15 or 20 light.
The Proteas went on to win in one of the most sensational ODIs ever, though whether any Glamorgan player tried to rally spirits by saying something similarly tongue-in-cheek remained under wraps.
Northeast did do his best to make up for his earlier misstep at the toss, top-scoring with an unbeaten 97 off 56 balls in Glamorgan’s chase, but simply did not receive enough support from his side.
Dan Douthwaite, who hit 34 off 17, and Salter, who added a 13-ball 24, were the only other visiting batters to pass 12, while Sams and Aaron Beard combined for a strangling 5/36 from eight overs.
Where the Eagles had built a solid platform that enabled Walter and Lawrence to go on the rampage, Glamorgan were instantly put under even more immense pressure inside the powerplay.
Sam Cook held on to two catches inside the first nine balls, first pouching Thomas Bevan off Beard before snaffling danger man Colin Ingram off Sams to instantly rock the visitors.
Beard’s express pace was proving a serious issue for Glamorgan, and the pressure again told when Billy Root’s leg stump was knocked over to leave the score at 10-3 after three overs.
An attempted recovery from Northeast and Eddie Byrom followed, but when the latter slapped Simon Harmer’s fifth ball to Luc Benkenstein at cover, the inevitable became even more so.
Ben Allison removed Chris Cooke for just two to put Glamorgan on 70-5 at halfway, though Northeast continued his one-man effort, slog-sweeping Harmer for six to post a 37-ball fifty.
Despite then being part of a stand with Salter that saw three successive overs towards the end of the chase each hit for 16, the visiting captain ultimately ended up falling short of a century.
Sams and Cook were the parties responsible for denying him three figures, as they ensured he, and Glamorgan, could only take one boundary off the final two overs.
Although the possibility of winning the game had long since passed the Welsh outfit by, a Northeast hundred was still within touching distance right up to the final ball, delivered by Cook.
However, an inch-perfect yorker could only be dug out for a single, handing Essex victory by 69 runs, and leaving the curtain to fall on a famous Saturday night in recent Eagles history.
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