T20: Essex's remarkable hitting sees them beat Glamorgan
- Published
Dan Lawrence top-scored for Essex with a quickfire 71
Vitality Blast, South Group: County Ground, Chelmsford |
Essex 254-5 (20 overs): Lawrence 71, Walter 58; McIlroy 2-32, Sisodiya 2-57 |
Glamorgan 185-7 (20 overs): Northeast 97*; Sams 3-20, Beard 2-16 |
Essex (2 pts) won by 69 runs |
Essex produced a remarkable display of hitting as they beat Glamorgan by 69 runs to maintain hopes of a T20 home quarter-final.
Dan Lawrence (71 off 37 balls) and Paul Walter (58 off 23) destroyed the the Welsh county's attack.
The hosts' total of 254-5 was a county record for Essex and the highest against Glamorgan.
Glamorgan managed 185-7 in response thanks largely to Sam Northeast's unbeaten 97.
The visitors had dropped out of quarter-final contention the previous evening and rested captain David Lloyd, with a calf injury, as well as Michael Neser, giving Tom Bevan a first-team debut and Jamie McIlroy a competition debut.
The Eagles put the Glamorgan attack to the sword from ball one with Adam Rossington's 45 off 23 getting them going on a very small playing area.
A score of 98-3 at halfway looked promising but Essex stepped up several gears as Walter smashed four successive sixes off Prem Sisodiya, who conceded 31 in the over.
Walter reached his half-century off only 29 balls and hit six maximums in all.
Lawrence joined in the boundary blitz with eight fours and three sixes as Essex scored 192 runs from boundaries.
A remarkable 156 came from the second half of the innings as Essex delighted their partisan faithful by topping their previous best of 244 against Sussex two weeks before.
McIlroy's two for 32 saw him suffer least among the visiting attack.
Glamorgan needed to come out swinging and failed badly as they slipped to 9-3 against the accuracy of Aaron Beard (2-16) and Daniel Sams (3-20).
Northeast, captaining the side for the first time in the absence of Lloyd and Kiran Carlson, did his best to hold things together.
Dan Douthwaite also chipped in with 34 off 17 balls - including three sixes - while Andrew Salter slammed a quickfire 24 in the damage limitation exercise as Glamorgan found some belated momentum to avoid their worst ever defeat.
Northeast kept going with 10 fours and four sixes in his impressive knock, which came off just 56 balls, but could not hit the boundary needed off the final delivery of the innings to reach a first hundred for Glamorgan.
Essex now need to hope Somerset lose to Surrey in their final match to earn a home quarter-final, while Glamorgan aim to restore some shattered pride away to fellow strugglers Kent on Sunday, 3 July.