Date-stamped : 14 Sep97 - 06:09 Morris tucks in as Cowan is forced off By Christopher Martin Jenkins at Cardiff First day of four: Glamorgan 307-7 v Essex THE PITCH, the two most experienced batsmen and simple fortune all gave Glamorgan assistance yesterday on their way to a total which is useful without being imposing. There was little evi- dence of the tension which would have been understandable in a match they have to win to sustain their championship chal- lenge. And on a dead slow, gently turning surface the colour of a dried fig, they reached 307 for seven despite twice losing two wickets in successive overs. A fourth batting point is 43 runs off, but even on a pitch so bare and bounceless as to give fast bowlers no help at all, it helped the Welsh cause considerably when Ashley Cowan left the field in dismay after five overs, having aggravated a shoulder injury. He is not expected to bowl again in the match and the cynic might observe that it has taken him only 24 hours to take on the characteristics of a true England bowler. In fact, he had been suffering from a sore shoulder for several weeks before the per- formance in the NatWest final which sealed his place in the team for the West Indies. He will have an exploratory operation as soon as possible. David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, said that this might have been worrying had the forthcoming tour been to Australia but there is ample time for a full recovery before January. Cowan described his problem as "stress related" and is sure that rest will put it right. That he has soldiered on suggests that he is made of the right stuff. He was so distressed about letting his team down yes- terday that he appeared to be limping off with a damaged shoulder. But he reappeared later to field and, with Ronnie Irani playing only as a bats- man, Essex were relieved that Mark Ilott bowled outstandingly and Danny Law with admirable and im- proved steadiness. The nature of the pitch was demonstrated by his namesake Stu- art`s decision to bowl leg breaks rather than medium pace. The occa- sional ball turned for Peter Such and Paul Grayson but the pace is slow enough for batsmen to have a chance of saving the match in the fourth innings unless Waqar Younis, who knows these grassless strips well, can reverse swing the ball effectively in support of Robert Croft and Dean Cosker. The whole ground was flooded last week, which explains why half the square beside the match pitch looks like a beach af- ter the tide has gone out. Matthew Maynard must have been re- lieved to win the toss and he and Hugh Morris obliged with the necessary innings of sub- stance after Steve James had been deft- ly caught off bat and pad at short leg from an inswinger in the fifth over. Morris and Adrian Dale played good, orthodox cricket in adding 138 for the second wicket, to the quiet satisfaction of a crowd of some 2,000 basking in sunshine that is not expected to re- turn for long today. Morris, having enjoyed early skirmishes with the spinners - Such, as always, bowled an immaculate length - surged forward when Cow- an attempted a second spell, smacking him for four fours through the covers in five balls. Ilott`s second spell rudely interrupted them. Dale, having played neatly and without blemish, received a length ball which pitched middle and hit the top of the off stump, the proverbial jaffa, whereupon Morris was undone on the back foot by a ball which nipped in off the seam. Maynard restored the initiative, making the game look easy, as he invariably does. For two hours, he hit the ball crisply but carefully, with Tony Cottey supporting busily, until the slowness did for them both. Maynard drove a return catch, Cottey to ex- tra cover. Adrian Shaw also played too early, chipping to mid- wicket, but Croft, after one handsome lofted drive off Such, will have had mixed feelings about being caught at silly point from one which turned and popped. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Law factor is still a concern for Glamorgan Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Cardiff Second day of four: Glamorgan (361) lead Essex (169 & 59-1) by 133 GLAMORGAN beat Essex late in the season by a single run when last they won the championship in 1969. To the rising excitement of an- other sizeable crowd on a second day when the weather en- ticed rather less, the 1997 side made purposeful strides yes- terday towards a rather less palpitating repeat. Essex were forced to follow on, by a combination of loose bat- ting and well directed swing bowling, and even if the rain fore- cast for this morning should take away more than the 27 overs which were lost to bad light yesterday, victory is within their compass on their wasteland of a square. If they turn their eight bonus points into 24 and Kent, for all yesterday`s stout cricket, are able only to draw at Heading- ley, the Welsh would take a lead of a single point into their final game. But they cannot afford to look beyond the next step, especially bearing in mind how Surrey frustrated them after appearing to be down and out in last week`s game at the Oval. Essex have already made a better fist of their second innings and Paul Prichard and Nasser Hussain, who have helped to reduce their original deficit of 192 to 133, have both - like Graham Thorpe in the Surrey match - made double hundreds this season. There is Stuart Law to come, too. His was the only innings of style or substance as Essex were bowled out for 169, which might have been an end-of-term performance were it not for the fact that Essex, ninth in the table when this round began, still have prize money to play for. Law himself was said to be quite pumped up for the game, per- haps with memories of the acerbic NatWest semi-final in mind, but he batted with what used to be called gay abandon to make 50 off 35 balls and 85 off 63. Last Sunday he described county cricket as being like "having a net". That was interpreted by some as an insult. His remark was in- tended rather, I believe, to stress that, with all their matches and travel, county cricketers have to do their practising in the middle. As usual yesterday, this beautifully balanced batsman, who sets out, like Bradman, to hit most balls for four and to defend only if he has to, played shots all round the wicket and on a pitch totally alien to the bouncy strips of Queensland, he hit 14 fours and only three singles. He had begun the day by taking a slip catch off the seventh delivery with the new ball from an outswinger by his namesake, Danny, who is starting to justify Essex`s immense patience. By the time that he had produced a ball of full length to bowl Darren Thomas, thus finishing with his best reurn for his adopted county, however, Glamorgan had got their fourth bonus point. Some forthright front-foot play by the left-handed Thomas had been chiefly responsible and this and the two wickets he took later contributed to the award of his county cap. It is Glamorgan`s ideally balanced bowling attack which has taken them so close to ultimate glory this season. Thomas now has 47 championship wickets, Waqar Younis 62, Robert Croft 58 and Steve Watkin 51. Between them they did the job again, with precious little help from the still almost posthumously slow pitch. They had two men out by lunch, which was important. Prichard, who is in high-season rather than late-season form, clipped Waqar low to square-leg, where Steve James held a fine catch by his boots. Hussain was beaten by Waqar`s first outswinger and neatly caught at second slip off his second, failing to get prop- erly forward to ei- ther. Not for the first time, Australia`s one-Test wonder made Eng- land`s vice-captain look the lesser player. Making too few conces- sions to the slowness of the pitch, he might have been caught several times as he drove and wafted his way to 85 of the 127 added between the second wicket and his own dismissal, to an overhead catch by Adrian Dale running back from mid-on. Cu- riously, for all his boundaries, he did not score off 35 balls, but Bradman was like that, too: tight defence, or irre- sistible attack. Until Mark Ilott played an untroubled innings at number nine, there was little to support him. Watkin, Waqar and Thomas simply pitched the ball up and swung it. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Grayson boycotts Glamorgan tactics Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Cardiff Third day of four: Essex (169 & 320-8) lead Glamorgan (361) by 128 runs EVEN when Waqar Younis was bowling in full and majestic sail down a sou`westerly bluster at Sophia Gardens yesterday, Glam- organ never had more than two slips. The quite extraordinary slowness of the pitch did not justify it and in its way the gale also made it difficult for the bowlers as Essex resisted all day to take the game into the final day today with a lead of 128 and two wickets left. An innings of Boycottian solidity by the Yorkshire-bred Paul Grayson eclipsed two freer but shorter efforts by Nasser Hussain and Ronnie Irani as the engrossing battle unfolded all day be- low a sky full of racing clouds. The tension was tangible at times but only once did that impressive umpire, Ray Julian, have to hold up a re- straining hand to calm passions in the field, after his colleague, John Har- ris, had upheld an appeal from Darren Thomas to end a promising innings under pressure by Barry Hyam. Glamorgan took two more wickets in the first 10 overs to end the day confident of the maximum 24 points so long as the forecast showers do not come together for long enough today to drive them to mis- ery. Another 23 overs were lost yesterday, taking to not far short of 2,000 the number lost to Glamorgan by rain this season. That is sec- ond only to Leicestershire and it would add further to the worth of their achievement if Glam- organ were to pip their two rivals in the east. First they must finish this job. Matthew Maynard`s tactics yesterday were dictated by the gusts blowing over the scoreboard from the Cathedral Road End. Apart from a spell by Steve Watkin in the first session, he kept Robert Croft and Dean Cosker going into the breeze from the River End, while Watkin, Waqar and Thomas took it in turns downwind. There was little joy for them at first as Hussain and Paul Prichard continued their fluent second-wicket partnership, Hussain playing particularly well. They had put on 102 when Prichard pulled a deadly long-hop from Croft to deep square-leg. If that was lucky for Glamorgan, so in a way was the lapse of concentration which caused Hussain, aiming for a huge gap at mid- on, to hit across the line of a ball from the admirably per- sistent Watkin which knocked back middle and off. Watkin followed up with a still bigger prize, somehow swinging the ball against the breeze to find the outside edge of Stuart Law`s bat as he pushed forward. Now Glamorgan were in business it seemed but Irani had not come into this match to take no part and Grayson played, from the very start, with flawless vigilance and a technique which can only have earned total approval from watching mentors like Keith Fletcher and Graham Gooch. At 26 Grayson may be a lateish developer but he is get- ting close to 1,000 runs for the second time and he must bless the day he took the journey south to Chelmsford. He plays very straight, using his height, a little over six foot, to get on top of the bounce (not that it was ever more than stump height on this pitch) and his concen- tration has not failed in the almost four hours he has batted so far. Irani, giving bad balls and an occasional good one a hearty biff, stayed 28 overs for his 50 before Waqar beat him for pace as he drove at a ball of full length and angrily pointed the way to the dressing room. A yorker accounted for Danny Law but Hyam and Mark Ilott both had to be prised out and Ashley Cowan showed that Essex were not going to lie down with a six into the Taff. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Glamorgan calmed by Maynard By Peter Roebuck at Cardiff Glamorgan (361 & 150-3) beat Essex (169 & 340) by 7 wkts GLAMORGAN have moved to the top of the table. For an hour they hung upon the edge of calamity. Pursuing 149, a modest enough tar- get, they sank to 26 for three and already their captain, Matthew May- nard, had been dropped behind the sticks. A large crowd sat anxiously in their green bucket seats. Every run was cheered with a desperation that later turned to rapture. Rhinoceroses were stomping in Welsh stomachs. Officials hard- ly dared to watch. Glamorgan had pushed and poked their way to 34 for three by the time lunch arrived, relieving the tension with its timely pause. Afterwards, the game took a different course. Strengthened by spaghetti served by cricket`s finest caterer, buoyed by the news from Leeds, calmed by words from their coach and assisted by leg- side offerings from the visiting pace men, the fourth- wicket pair settled into their work and slowly took charge of the match. Appropriately, Maynard led the way with an innings that moved from jumpiness to command. At once he reflected and dictated the tide of affairs. Tucking neatly off his pads, he fed like a squirrel upon nuts; only later did he resemble a lion feeding upon a car- cass. Even then, he was too adventurous to some faint-hearted supporters, one lofted stroke bringing forth a cry of "want to win d`you? Hit `em on the ground." Happily it fell to Maynard to hit the winning runs with a par- ticularly polished glide through square leg, whereupon he raised his arms aloft, embraced his partner and ran to the bal- cony, where team-mates were soon acknowledging the cheers of a delighted crowd. Maynard found a determined partner in Tony Cottey, a pugna- cious and pint-sized cricketer with a buffalo`s heart. Cottey has suf- fered this season, 277 championship runs in 13 innings before this en- gagement, but it did not show. Arriving in the depth of Welsh despond, he immediately started nipping down the pitch to put the spinners off their length. He might lose his wicket, one thought, but he will not lose his head. Glamor- gan`s hopes were in good hands. And so it proved as Ashley Cowan was resisted and runs were taken from his replacements on a sunny, cold and blustery after- noon. Al- though Paul Prichard changed his bowlers around, it was to no avail as the Welshmen moved towards the target with leg clips and cuts and singles. The end came swiftly, whereupon the celebrating and football began. Already it has been a con- siderable achievement. It is not easy for a western county to win a championship, and it is even harder in a wet summer. Glamorgan`s difficulties were caused by Cowan`s wholehearted opening spell and by tentative batting. No sooner had the chase begun than Hugh Morris edged a forward prod and Steve James was beaten on the back foot. Nor could Adrian Dale stop himself leaving a gate as he pushed against Peter Such`s spin. In the nick of time lunch arrived and thereafter Glamorgan were convincing. Not since 1969 have the Welsh won a champi- onship. Alan Jones and Don Shepherd were among their players then, and both were present in Cardiff to see their committed successors take their rightful place in the rankings. Glamorgan have their noses in front. Let the chase begin. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)