After an inconsistent start to their T20 Blast campaign. Glamorgan take on Hampshire at Sophia Gardens on Thursday evening. This is the first in our series profiling each opponent that Glamorgan will face in this season’s T20 Blast.

Hampshire, coached by Adrian Birrell and captained by James Vince, are based at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton and are one of the lucky ‘test match’ counties, with the ground most recently hosting one day international cricket and the inaugural World Test Championship final between New Zealand and India.

Record This Season

Hampshire have an identical record to Glamorgan this season, with two wins and two loses in four games. Glamorgan’s excellent net run rate (NRR) has the Welsh county currently in fourth, compared to Hampshire, who are in seventh.

Most recently, they were comprehensively defeated by Somerset on Sunday. The West Country county piled on 241-5 in their 20 overs and then bowled Hampshire out for 178, winning by 63 runs, some margin in T20 cricket.

Ben McDermott was the shinning light of a dim performance, scoring 46 from 29 balls, including six fours and two sixes.

Key Man

Club captain James Vince is the highest run scorer in T20 Blast history and leads second place Joe Denly by more than 4,000 runs, such has been the batter’s dominance at this level.

Vince first topped the run scoring charts in 2017, when he scored 710 runs, before consecutive 670+ run seasons in 2022 and 2023.

Despite having started without a notable score this season, Vince will be key to Hants chances of registering a fourth Blast victory.

Overseas Players

The aforementioned Australian international Ben McDermott has been a part of Hampshire’s T20 side for the last three seasons, and most notably scoring 62 from 36 balls in the 2022 final, winning player of the match for his performance.

McDermott has been a part of Australia white-ball squads since his first call up in 2021, appearing in 25 T20s and 5 ODIs.

Hampshire’s other overseas this season this another Australian international: Michael Neser. Well known to the Glamorgan faithful after his three seasons in Cardiff from 2021 to 2023, Neser has hit the ground running on the south coast, taking 7 wickets and offering an excellent batting option at number nine in the Hampshire order.

Past Glories

Hampshire have excellent pedigree in the T20 Blast, having won the competition a record three times – joint with Leicestershire.

Victories over Somerset and Yorkshire in 2010 and 2012 were followed up in 2022 with a thrilling 1 run win over Lancashire.

Several Blast legends have worn the yellow and royal blue, including Sam Northeast, Michael Carberry, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Dominic Cork, Sean Ervine, and Jimmy Adams.

Wildcard

Has there been a bigger rise in recent years than that of John Turner? The 23-year-old speedster made his T20 debut for Hampshire at the start of the 2023 season and was called up to an England squad just 70 days later.

Turner has an exceptional T20 record: 21 wickets in 11 games in his record season, bowling high pace with a low economy rate. No wonder England came calling. Unfortunately, Turner is yet to appear in England colours, after suffering an injury to his side before his first series against New Zealand.

Such was the national team’s faith in his talent, Turner was called up again in November for England’s white ball series with West Indies. Further injury issues kept him away from that tour, meaning he did not play a game between August 2023 and February 2024.

However, Turner has seemingly put his injury troubles behind him, playing all four of Hampshire’s games this season, including a stellar performance against Gloucestershire, taking 3-24.

Weaknesses

Despite their excellent opening pair of Vince and McDermott, Hampshire’s middle order can be got at, particularly with high quality spin. They do compensate for this with a long batting line-up: against Somerset, Liam Dawson came in at eight and Neser at nine, but putting these all rounders under pressure is the key to victory for Glamorgan.

If Glamorgan’s spin twins, Mason Crane and Marnus Labuschagne, can perform as well as they did against Essex – taking 4-25 and 3-35 respectively – Glamorgan have a great chance of recording a third victory, and setting themselves well on their way to qualifying for the quarter-finals.

Glamorgan play Hampshire on Thursday 13th June, with play starting at 6:30pm. You can get your tickets at shop.ticketing.cm.com/glamorgan-ccc/