In the second of ecb.co.uk’s pre-season features with each of the 18 counties, Glamorgan head coach Toby Radford talks up the Welsh club’s experienced players, new signings and promising youngsters. We also have predictions on Glamorgan’s campaign from our experts.
Kevin Howells (BBC radio)
Jacques Rudolph is someone I admire – a good cricketer and I'm sure he will make a good captain. Like others in this division, the team need to perform for longer periods in matches.
David Fulton (Sky Sports News)
One of a few counties in Division Two who have been better in the one-day competitions than the championship in recent years. Hogan has been a good performer for them, and will be important again. They’ll be anxious his injury isn’t too serious.
If things had worked out differently, Toby Radford could have spent the last week preparing West Indies for their World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand, rather than watching Glamorgan and Gloucestershire battle the elements at the SWALEC Stadium for an unusually early pre-season friendly.
But as he looks forward to his second campaign as the head coach of the Welsh county, Radford insists he has no regrets.
The 43-year-old is often regarded as a Middlesex man, having made his first-class debut for the county before returning to play a key role in establishing their academy.
But Radford’s accent remains heavily influenced by his Caerphilly roots, and that made him receptive in October 2013 when he was approached by Glamorgan’s Hugh Morris to leave the West Indies national set-up, and come home to Wales.
Radford had been a member of the coaching staff headed up by Ottis Gibson – another man with Glamorgan links – for the memorable World Twenty20 triumph in Sri Lanka in 2012.
But now he is relishing the responsibility of reviving Glamorgan on the field in a huge year for cricket in Wales – with the 2015 Ashes series beginning in Cardiff on July 8.
“This club has had success in years gone by, and I’ve come home to try and play my part in achieving success again,” he explained.
Radford makes no apology for the fact that the Welsh county will again be reliant on overseas players to provide the bulk of the experience in their squad – with the notable exception of Mark Wallace, the 33-year-old wicketkeeper from Abergavenny who set that remarkable record of playing in 200 consecutive County Championship matches last summer.
Wallace, who will start the season with two more notable landmarks in his sights – 10,000 first-class runs for Glamorgan, and becoming only the second keeper to have claimed 1,000 dismissals for the club – has made way as captain this season for Jacques Rudolph, the equally experienced South African who, like Radford, is starting his second summer in Cardiff.
Rudolph will be joined this year by his compatriot Colin Ingram, and Michael Hogan is back from Australia to lead the attack – although there are doubts over the tall seamer’s fitness to start the season after he was ruled out the Sheffield Shield final with a hamstring injury.
James Kettleborough and Craig Meschede have also been recruited, from Northamptonshire and Somerset respectively, although Jim Allenby has traded places with Meschede having captained Glamorgan’s T20 team last summer.
“With Jacques and Colin Ingram we’ll have two international batters, and the bowling will be spearheaded by Michael who I’d say would be regarded as one of the best overseas bowlers in the game,” added Radford. "We’re in touch with him. He’s due to fly in soon, and he tends to heal quickly, so we hope he'll be fit for the first game.”
“But the aim for this club is to develop Welsh players, and hopefully people will see that increasingly. We have two very different but talented off-spinners in Kieran Bull and Andrew Salter, Ruaidhri Smith is a young opening bowler who is still at Bristol University but got some wickets for us last year, and David Lloyd is another all-rounder trying to cement a place.”
Perhaps the most exciting young Welsh talent of all is Aneurin Donald, the 18-year-old from Swansea who scored a half-century on his first-class debut against Hampshire last September, and will shortly head for Australia with England Under-19s.
“He showed in that one innings that he isn’t going to be overawed, and going to Australia should be another big step in his development,” Radford says.
“But we have to be mindful that he is still only 18, and he will still be studying for his A-levels when he comes back. So we have to patient and not burden him with too much, but hopefully he can come into the picture when we get deeper into the season.”
Glamorgan have finished eighth in Division Two in consecutive summers, and have ended in the top half only once in nine straight seasons in the second tier since they were relegated in 2005.
But as Radford points out, it has not all been doom and gloom, with their run to the Lord’s final of the Yorkshire Bank 40 in 2013, and some excellent performances in last year’s NatWest T20 Blast before they were stunned by Jordan Clark in the quarter-final against Lancashire Lightning.
“The record shows we’ve been highly competitive in both forms of one-day cricket,” said the coach. “The big challenge is to climb up the table in the championship, and to try to be better and more consistent.”
That challenge begins at Grace Road against Leicestershire on April 12.
Glamorgan
Captain: Jacques Rudolph
Head coach: Toby Radford
In: James Kettleborough (Northamptonshire), Craig Meschede (Somerset, loan), Colin Ingram (South Africa)
Out: John Glover (retired), Murray Goodwin (retired), Gareth Rees (retired), Mike Reed (released), Stewart Walters (released) and Tom Lancefield (released), Jim Allenby (Somerset)