T20 Blast: Feroze Khushi leads Essex Eagles to dominant Glamorgan win

Essex opener Feroze Khushi's 61 came off 37 balls

Feroze Khushi (61), Paul Walter (43) and Daniel Sams (41) blasted Essex to a sixth win from eight as they made short work of a Glamorgan target of 176.

Essex won by four wickets with four overs to spare, despite losing three early on to Jamie McIlroy.

Kiran Carlson (43) and Timm van der Gugten (33) were the only Glamorgan batters to get going against an economical home attack.

Sams (1-20) was particularly effective in limiting them to 175-6.

Essex are well placed on 12 points from eight games while injury-hit Glamorgan are stuck on four victories after three defeats in a row.

Glamorgan, already without David Lloyd, Eddie Byrom, and Dan Douthwaite through injury, have South African batter Colin Ingram added to the casualty list as he suffered an achilles problem that saw him limping early in his innings, and did not field.

After being put in, Glamorgan enjoyed the first five overs with Carlson and Sam Northeast adding 54 before Northeast holed out for 15 off Sams, the first of three outfield catches calmly bagged by Paul Walter.

Ingram then went lame early on and soon skied a catch off Simon Harmer for seven.

Carlson's blitz, including five fours and two sixs, lasted just 25 balls before he dragged one from Shane Snater onto his stumps, with spinners Simon Harmer and Matt Critchley accounting for Chris Cooke (27) and Billy Root (21) as they tried to up the rate.

Van der Gugten smashed three sixes in his 14-ball cameo but Essex put the brakes on effectively as Glamorgan's total looked well below par.

Essex lost three early wickets to seamer McIlroy, including two in two balls in the first over.

But Khushi, undaunted, swung hard at the other end and found a willing ally in Walter as they raced to 66-3 in the powerplay and took their stand to 80 in eight.

Walter had collected three half-centuries in successive innings against Glamorgan and looked set for another, striking at more than 200 when he top-edged a catch off spinner Peter Hatzoglou.

Khushi fell in the next over after hitting four fours and four sixs, hammering a return catch to Van der Gugten to leave Glamorgan sniffing a breakthrough.

But Critchley (16 not out) and Sams kept their heads, the Australian's 41 coming off just 16 balls before McIlroy bowled him for a career-best 4-36.

Essex strolled to a comfortable double inside eight days to keep themselves firmly in the race while Glamorgan have lost momentum.

Essex's Feroze Khushi said:

"Confidence is really high after four in four, so we're on a good run at the moment. We've got a big game at Lord's on Sunday so we've got to keep the momentum going.

"We're playing good cricket, everyone's chipping in, different guys are stepping up and it's a great group to be around."

Glamorgan's Jamie McIlroy told BBC Sport Wales:

"It was nice to pick up some early wickets but they played well and hit the ball cleanly so it's hard to defend then. You've got to be looking at 210-220 to defend here, it's quite a small ground and the ball flies away.

"You always have the hope when you get a few early wickets to try to swing the momentum, I felt at one point it was going to go our way, then they got hold of a few in the middle.

"I'd rather win and take one wicket than lose and take four.

"The schedule's busy, six hours in a car down here from a Championship game at Durham was not ideal and now we're back at home, then back to London, so it's pretty tiring but we're doing the best we can."