Glamorgan Cricket: Colin Ingram aims for best season yet

6 April 2017

South African batsman Colin Ingram is hoping for his best season yet with the county as he prepares for his first Championship match since 2015.

Ingram has had knee surgery after being restricted to limited-overs cricket only in 2016.

"I wasn't happy with my first season here, it showed good signs but I wasn't as consistent as I would have liked," he told BBC Wales Sport.

Ingram has played two four-day games for Warriors in South Africa in 2017.

Despite his struggles with a knee injury, he was Glamorgan's limited-overs Player of the Year in 2016, topping the batting averages in both the T20 Blast and One-Day Cup with a total of 869 runs, as well as taking 15 wickets.

"It'll be tough to repeat last year (in white-ball cricket) but I'm coming with every intention to do that," Ingram told BBC Wales Sport. "It was a special season but I've had those in the past."

Ingram, 31, who has made 40 appearances for South Africa, helped Warriors to the final of both limited-overs competitions in his native country.

But the left-hander admits it took him longer than he expected to return to the longer format after a knee operation in August, finally playing red-ball cricket again in February 2017, almost a year since his last previous appearance.

"It's great to be back and probably the fittest I've been in the last two years, so I'm looking forward to getting back into Championship cricket again," he confirmed.

"It took a lot longer than I thought, but fortunately having months away to get it sorted, getting the last two four-dayers and spending some time in the middle, it was nice to get back into it."

Ingram will be joined in the Glamorgan batting line-up for the season opener at Northampton by Chris Cooke, who has not played a competitive match since May 2016 because of back trouble.

David Lloyd is likely to bat at three with Will Bragg suffering from a back trouble, with captain Jacques Rudolph, fellow opener Nick Selman and Aneurin Donald making up the rest of the probable top order.

New signing, South African paceman Marchant de Lange, is in line to lead the bowling attack on his debut, with Glamorgan facing the prospect of beginning the season shorn of Timm van der Gugten, Graham Wagg and Ruaidhri Smith.