T20 Blast: Glamorgan pip Essex in last-ball drama

Colin Ingram scored a career best to help Glamorgan beat Essex

Glamorgan pipped Essex off the last ball of a superb T20 Blast match as Craig Meschede hit the last two deliveries for four and six.

Colin Ingram's career-best 114 and Chris Cooke's 49 helped Glamorgan to 224-5, their best-ever run-chase in the competition.

Both were dismissed by Mohammad Amir in the 19th over but Meschede proved the visitors' hero.

Varun Chopra's maiden T20 hundred had taken Essex to an impressive 219-4.

Chopra (103 not out) and Ravi Bopara (63) ran riot in a third-wicket stand of 122 as the ball disappeared out of the ground regularly, with Chopra hitting eight of his team's 15 sixes in his 59-ball innings.

But Glamorgan always looked in the hunt with Ingram and Cooke at the wicket as Ingram hit his second hundred in eight days, striking eight fours and nine fours in his 55-ball knock.

Six were needed off Paul Walter's last two balls, but Meschede, playing his first innings of the T20 campaign, hit a four through long-on and a six over point to end a dramatic afternoon in style.

It was the second-highest successful run chase in domestic British T20 cricket, behind only Sussex's 226-3 also at Chelmsford in 2014.

Glamorgan batsman Colin Ingram told BBC Wales Sport:

"An exciting one to be part of, I've enjoyed the last couple of seasons coming down to Essex (after two hundreds in a week in 2016), there's often a short boundary and I try to pick it out.

"I was fortunate up-front, got away with a (dropped) chance and looked to take advantage of it- we had to play with a lot of freedom chasing a big total and we've started to build better partnerships which has enabled us to get these big scores.

"It was hard coming off, I was committed to get through to the end and win us the game, but credit to the guys who held their nerve, Craig Meschede and Graham Wagg played beautifully to get us home, an incredible win."

Essex batsman Varun Chopra told BBC Essex:

"Great game, but there's a sour taste in the mouth losing off the last ball there. We were happy with the total, but Colin Ingram has been fantastic in white-ball cricket all season and he struck it brilliantly today, a very destructive innings which put us to the sword.

"I did say this year I wanted (a T20 hundred), so nice to get one and hopefully I can get more and we can keep posting big totals.

"We had a good penultimate over, then three singles off the first three balls (of the last) and we were thinking it could be done, but we probably weren't quite good enough with the ball and in the field."