With spring in full swing, attention turns to the summer sporting calendar.

As the football and rugby seasons come to their conclusions, the cricket season, ever understated and underrated, coughs, splutters, and rumbles into gear.

‘I wouldn’t have thought it’

Glamorgan will, for the first time, be represented by dual professional teams, as the women’s side of the club begins its first season as a semi-professional outfit.

Initially put into the second tier of the revamped women’s professional structure, Glamorgan will move up to the top county level in 2027.

“If you asked me three or four years ago, I wouldn’t have thought we would have a women’s team here at Glamorgan turning professional in two years’ time,” says Glamorgan’s head of women and girls’ cricket, Aimee Rees.

With the success of The Hundred and, in particular, Welsh Fire’s run to the final at Lord’s last season, Glamorgan are looking to use that as a springboard to future success and development of Welsh women’s cricket.

Nine senior Wales players from the old system forms the basis of the new Glamorgan squad, with 15 academy youngsters selected from Wales, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire.

“Those girls have shown incredible commitment coming in for squad sessions twice a week and one-to-one sessions, but they really want to play for Glamorgan,” adds Rees.

 Returning Hero

Coaching them will be Rachel Priest, 39, who made 162 international appearances for New Zealand and featured in the women’s Big Bash in Australia as well as the Hundred in the UK.

But two years playing county cricket for Wales helped attract Priest back to Cardiff.

“It was a real privilege to play for a county that also represented a country, and I love the people here, so it was an awesome opportunity for me to start my coaching career and be part of something brand new,” says Priest.

“What an opportunity for these girls to have a career in a sport they love.

“There’s a long way to go in the development of women’s cricket around the world but the UK has put a lot of resource into it and this new set-up is going to be really good in bringing on the next generation.”

 Building on success

For the men’s side of the club, they are looking to use their recent white ball success – most notably their One Day Cup victory last season – as a platform for County Championship consistency, something that has illuded them in recent seasons.

Unfortunately, Glamorgan’s preparations for the season have been clouded by the recent sacking, and subsequent disciplinary action against head coach Grant Bradburn.

The former Scotland head coach admitted to charges of using discriminatory language during his time at the Welsh county and the Cricket Discipline Commission’s report revealed that these included comments with racist and sexist connotations.

These comments included asking players of Asian background what their ‘real age’ was, implying that they were not telling truth about their age on record. During fielding training, he also compared lacklustre practices to women’s cricket, using the phrase ‘this isn’t Western Storm’, referring to the former women’s region at played at Sophia Gardens.

The club acted swiftly in removing Bradburn from his role, but all that upheaval means a new coach, Richard Dawson, will be taking the reigns this season, for the beginning at least.

Chasing red ball wins

For club captain Sam Northeast, though, the squad are ready to hit the ground running for first block of seven County Championship matches.

“With Daws coming in and getting to know the squad a little bit, he has definitely highlighted the need to get off to a good start,” says Northeast.

“With our overseas coming in, we feel we are in a good position to take every game as to comes and look to win a few early.”

Glamorgan, and indeed the rest of Division Two, have struggled to pick up wins in recent seasons, with draws dominating the lower division of red ball domestic cricket.

April and May, typically months of the year where ball has the edge over bat, have actually seen the most draws, with the ECB experimenting with games where the traditional Dukes ball is swapped for the Australian Kookaburra. This along with slight changes in the weather and therefore pitches, means that batters are approaching the new season with less trepidation than usual.

For Northeast and the rest of the side, though, these are just small obstacles that have forced them to become more attacking in their approach to the game.

“I think we started that process last year, in terms of really trying to change the mentality and making sure that everything we do is geared towards winning games of cricket,” explains Northeast.

 Wickets win matches

For Glamorgan, that means backing their bowlers to take 20 wickets each match. On that front, new overseas signing Asitha Fernando will have a key role.

The Sri Lankan international was the standout for his country when they played England last summer, taking a 5-fer at Lord’s and helping them to a surprise victory in the final test at The Oval.

“We pinpointed [Asitha] as somebody that we wanted, somebody a bit Michael Neser who had success with us before,” says Northeast.

“Stump to stump, a little skiddy in his delivery but can swing the ball at good pace. The fact that he will be available for a large chunk of this first block is a real positive.”

For experienced batter Kiran Carlson, the side is shaping up well for another long campaign.

“I think that first day after a long one in the field can be pretty tough, but the boys are ready to give the red ball season a real crack,” Carlson says.

“There’s a nice, fresh energy to the group. Daws has brought that, and the lads are excited to get going.”

 

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