Glamorgan preview

Date: Monday 19 July 2010

After a period of fast and furious Friends Provident t20 cricket, Leicestershire return to the relative calm of the LV=County Championship when they travel to Swansea on Wednesday.

County lie in fifth place in the table but tackle third place Glamorgan at the St Helens Ground, and with leaders Sussex in town for the next home game, have an opportunity to put pressure on the teams at the top.

The last two games have been scattered among sixteen t20 games but both have produced excellent three-day away victories.

The game at Surrey saw the team dominate from word go, and although nobody made a hundred or took a five-for at New Road, County won comfortably against a Worcestershire side who were plying their trade in the first division last season.

Glamorgan have been going well in the four-day arena this term and one of their five wins was at Grace Road.

Leicestershire may well have erased all memories of the match out of their minds, given a 125-run lead by tea on the second day had turned into a ten-wicket defeat 24 hours later.

However, rather than dwell on the disappointment of that, the side reacted with a positive performance during a rain-affected draw against Middlesex and two good wins on their travels.

If they are to register a third then standards will need to match those fine wins – and perhaps even be raised slightly.

For Glamorgan, as well as being a well-drilled, talented outfit, also seem to have the voodoo sign over Leicestershire recently.

The win at Grace Road followed on from victory at Colwyn Bay in 2009, where the home side again turned around a game that Leicestershire looked to be well in at the halfway stage.

That was down to a record-breaking stand by Robert Croft and Adam Shantry for the ninth wicket, and rather than setting a testing target on a slow, turning pitch in North Wales, County had to bat with a substantial first innings deficit and lost by an innings.

In team news, Leicestershire will give checks to Andrew McDonald (shoulder) and Will Jefferson (Achilles) as the in-form duo both missed the final t20 game against Warwickshire after picking up niggles against Notts.

Josh Cobb is definitely out with an ankle problem, but Harry Gurney and Matthew Boyce, who missed the game at Worcestershire with flu and a muscle tweak respectively, are back available.

Wayne White also missed out at New Road but the all-rounder put in a fine performance against Pakistan in the tourist game and will also come back into the reckoning.

The Glamorgan side will feature a familiar face as former Leicestershire all-rounder Jim Allenby is enjoying a super season in the Championship.

Allenby has scored 517 runs at a shade of 43 with the bat and also leads the bowling averages with 24 wickets at a cost of under 20 apiece.

Another interesting battle will feature two young bowlers both set for a big future in the game.

James Harris, who has never failed to impress whenever I’ve seen him in the past, has 37 Championship wickets at 19.48 while Nathan Buck as 28 at a tad over 26 in his first full season on four-day cricket.

Given the nature of Swansea results in the past though, spinners could play a key role in the outcome.

Claude Henderson (31 wickets at 21.41) and Jigar Naik (12 at 19.83) will lead the way for Leicestershire, while Glamorgan can call upon the wily trio of Dean Cosker (24 at 25.08), Robert Croft (6 at 34) and Jamie Dalrymple (8 at 30.62).

That spin triumvirate helped win the game at Colwyn Bay last season, but Henderson also impressed in that match and has been in quite superb form this season.

Henderson was the standout bowler throughout t20 and his four-day season has been going great guns too.

On the batting front, Jefferson, James Taylor and Paul Nixon are all well past 500 runs, while Tom New’s quiet efficiency has seen him register 427 runs with four half-centuries.

It all augurs for an interesting contest in South Wales.