County Championship: Glamorgan to start 2021 season at Yorkshire

Glamorgan will start their County Championship campaign away to Yorkshire on 8 April, the two counties' first meeting in four-day cricket for a decade.

They face Sussex on 15 April in their first home match in Cardiff.

Northants, Kent and Lancashire are their other group opponents in the new structure, which will also include four play-off games starting on 30 August.

Sophia Gardens will host four of the home group games.

"We're really looking forward to a challenging group, with some four 'first division' sides in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Kent, and Northamptonshire, and Sussex have given us some great games over recent years," director of cricket Mark Wallace said.

"Other sports will be going first (on crowds coming back) so we'll learn a lot and hopefully with the vaccine rolling out, we'll get people back watching in the summer."

Out-ground questions

The Lancashire match has often been played at Colwyn Bay to maximise crowds, but that is yet to be decided depending on the public health situation.

"We've left the venue for the Lancashire game to be confirmed, with the precautions for Covid it's a lot easier to play at county headquarters but we are committed to taking cricket around Wales if we can do that safely for players and everyone else," Wallace told BBC Sport Wales.

Also to be confirmed is the issue of matches at St Helens, which normally hosts a Championship match, though Swansea and Newport are potentially in line for One-Day Cup games when the Welsh Fire Hundred franchise is based in Cardiff.

"We are committed to cricket in West Wales, if that's at St Helens then great but we've got Colwyn Bay, we've got Newport and other out-grounds we want to play on.

"St Helens has a rich history, it's a place where people love to play, but we've got to get a lot of things in place to get cricket on," said the former county captain and wicket-keeper.

Star names

Glamorgan are also waiting on the availability of Australian batsman Marnus Labuschagne and South African Colin Ingram, who could return to four-day cricket as cover for Labuschagne during the opening bloc of fixtures.

"The Future Tours Programme for international cricket is very much up in the air, we're going to have to be flexible because we thought there was a chance we might miss Marnus for periods.

"The plan is for Colin Ingram to be here from pre-season so hopefully we'll have an on-site replacement for Marnus," explained Wallace.

The ultra-lucrative Indian Premier League, clashing with the opening weeks of the UK season, could also prove a complicating factor for either or both batsmen.

"Marnus hasn't been drafted in the IPL before but his form has been so strong in Test and one-day formats, that could happen and we'd have to get through it," said Wallace.

"Colin's doing quite well in the Big Bash (in Australia) so he could get drafted in the IPL, he hasn't been drafted for a few years but he has got pedigree. If he got drafted as well, we'd have to think on our feet pretty quickly."

The County Championship is being played in the revised format for 2021 only, with teams allocated to seeded groups according to their performances over the last two summers.

Glamorgan are ranked fifth of the six teams in their group.

Fixtures for the One-Day Cup and T20 Blast are set to be announced in January.

Glamorgan Championship group fixtures

8 April, Yorkshire (Headingley)

15 April, Sussex (Cardiff)

22 April, Northants (Northampton)

29 April, Kent (Cardiff)

6 May, Lancashire (Old Trafford)

13 May, Yorkshire (Cardiff)

20 May, Kent (Canterbury)

3 June, Lancashire (Home - Venue TBC)

4 July, Sussex (Hove)

11 July, Northants (Cardiff)

Play-offs: 30 August, 5, 12, 21 September

Bob Willis Trophy final: 27 September