Sussex rue absent innovative as Glamorgan go giant in rearguard of overkill proportions
Glamorgan 123 and 737 (Carlson 192, Labuschagne 138, Neser 123) drew with Sussex 481 (Coles 138, Smith 89, Haines 58) and 1 for 0
The sight of Ollie Robinson leaving the Sussex dressing-rooms on crutches and together with his left foot in a protecting boot summed up the stark turnaround on this match at Hove. Robinson’s celebrations had been unrestrained on day one when he eliminated Marnus Labuschagne together with his first ball to the Australian, as Glamorgan had been blown away in 37.4 overs. But the guests batted out greater than six periods second time round to report their second-highest first-class whole and combat the sport to a standstill.
Glamorgan coach, Matthew Maynard, praised his facet’s resilience after they overcame a first-innings deficit of 358, with Australia allrounder Michael Neser changing into the third centurion of the innings. After Robinson’s opening salvo, a lot of the pre-Ashes points-scoring on this match has come from the opposite facet. “He’s contributed really well with the bat this year for us, on top of his outstanding bowling efforts,” Maynard mentioned of Neser. “To top it with a hundred, delighted for him.”
Sussex, who recorded their fifth consecutive draw to stay second in Division Two, had been left greater than a little bit battered by the hassle. Robinson had been off the sector since earlier than lunch on day three because of an ankle damage that would have an effect on his England availability and the captain, Cheteshwar Pujara, was absent on Sunday with a stiff neck (though India should not want to fret about his readiness for the World Test Championship closing). Three bowlers – Ari Karvelas, Jack Carson and James Coles – bowled greater than 30 overs, with Carson sending down 54 for figures of two for 216.
An assault lacking the companies of Robinson was maybe all the time going to wrestle to take 20 wickets for less than the second time this season. They received there in the long run, by which period Glamorgan had amassed 737 – the fifth-highest second-innings rating in historical past – and a lead of 379 with nominally 14 overs left within the recreation. Neser scored the third first-class hundred of his profession, and first for Glamorgan, the mark achieved with a mighty slog-sweep for six off the bowling of his Australia team-mate Steven Smith.
Smith, bowling offbreaks, picked up a maiden Sussex wicket – exuberantly celebrated after a superb one-handed catch on the boundary rope by sub fielder Sean Hunt – and ultimately yorked Neser to convey the innings to a detailed. Cricket being cricket, the timing of the dismissal meant that Sussex nonetheless needed to come out and bat for an over earlier than arms may very well be shaken on a draw, with Labuschagne bounding eagerly by six deliveries of medium-pace earlier than signing off from county duties.
Glamorgan’s monumental effort eclipsed by greater than 150 runs their earlier highest second-innings rating – made at Newport in 1939, towards a Gloucestershire staff for whom Wally Hammond chalked up 302. Emrys Davies was the bulwark for Glamorgan on that event, making a career-best 287 not out. Here the Welsh hero was Kiran Carlson, who additionally made his highest first-class rating – albeit solely bettering the earlier mark by one run – with notable help from Glamorgan’s two Australian abroad gamers.
As epic rearguards go, you would scarcely ask for extra – and after Carlson went early, including simply 5 runs to his in a single day 187, it was no shock that Glamorgan had been bored with making a sporting declaration. All that work to go dwelling with 2 factors? No thanks. “We were never safe until quite late in the day,” Maynard mentioned. In the tip, their second-innings effort outstripped their first by greater than 600 runs, which within the language of the Tour de France, that nice sporting endurance check, was moderately like crashing your bike down at sea degree in Bayonne solely to then beast your strategy to the entrance of the peloton in time to summit the Col du Tourmalet.
All outcomes remained theoretically doable initially of the day, with Glamorgan 141 in entrance and Sussex hoping to burgle 5 wickets and arrange a chase. They managed two within the morning session, and two extra in the course of the afternoon, however the recreation was already drifting in the direction of somnolence. Smith was referred to as on to bowl – maybe imitating Labuschagne’s latest tinkering by eschewing his common legbreaks – after which it was on to the collector’s gadgets: Tom Alsop’s left-arm tweak and the optimistic lob-ups of Ali Orr, for the primary time in senior cricket.
The day took on a vaguely hallucinatory high quality, because the gamers went by their motions. It delivered to thoughts a quote from Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, which describes “the beauty of cricket played on a lawn of appropriate dimensions, where the white-clad ring of infielders, swanning figures on the vast oval, again and again converge in unison toward the batsman and again and again scatter back to their starting points, a repetition of pulmonary rhythm, as if the field breathed through its luminous visitors.” Except, by this level, we had been all ready for it to take its closing breath.
Sussex had been left to rue having dropped Carlson on 3 halfway by the second morning – though given even the Glamorgan No. 11 Jamie McIlroy made a career-best (11 not out), maybe the mix of floor and opposition would have proved unyielding both method. Five Glamorgan batters confronted greater than 100 balls, whereas every of the underside three batted for greater than an hour in help of Neser.
Paul Farbrace, who described Robinson’s moon boot as “precautionary”, mentioned that Sussex’s bowling within the second innings had not been constant sufficient, and confirmed the membership are set to herald a second abroad bowler for the subsequent block of Championship video games, with Pujara and Smith each departing for worldwide obligation.
“We are getting our bonus points for bowling a team out once, but we’re not capable of doing it twice, and that’s an area we’ve got to improve on,” Farbrace mentioned. “Instead of finishing this little period of Championship games with one win in six, I think we should be finishing it with at least three wins. But we’ve not been good enough to do that.”
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick