By Paul Jones
Timm van der Gugten cemented his place as the season’s leading bowler in the LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two with his third five-wicket hall of the campaign as Glamorgan wrapped up victory against Worcestershire on the third day in Cardiff.
Glamorgan won by 10 wickets after they finished off the Worcestershire second innings inside the first hour of day three.
This win gives Glamorgan their first victory of the season and 20 points to keep them in the hunt for a promotion spot in second place in the table.
Worcestershire have now lost two and drawn two since their opening-round victory against Derbyshire.
Set a target of just 79 to win, Glamorgan were seen home by Eddie Byrom, who top scored with 51, and David Lloyd.
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Van der Gugten said: “It’s great to get the first win of the year, I think we’ve played really well and we were close against Yorkshire last week, so hopefully there’s many more to come.
“As a unit we bowled really well, everyone deserved wickets. It was a bit up and down, and there wasn’t a great deal of bounce, so you tend to bowl a bit on the shorter side and we got our rewards.
“The extra day off is going to help [the chances of facing Sussex], I want to play but I’ll see how we are.
“It’s going to be an exciting challenge against Sussex, they’ve got two of the best batters in the world and it would be nice to finish the red-ball stuff on a good note.
“I’ve probably bowled a bit more this season already [after the departure of Michael Hogan]. He would have been our go-to guy but I’ve enjoyed bowling with the new ball again and things have fallen my way.”
Glamorgan coach Matthew Maynard said: “The bowling group carried on from their great work at Yorkshire and all four seamers contributed terrifically in the game.
“It was great to see Jamie McIlroy get some reward for his hard work, all four were superb and a shout out for Neser’s batting as well.
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“We’re finding some rhythm and I’m very happy. If the weather hadn’t intervened it would have been won two, lost one, drawn two.
“There are some tired bodies and we’ll have to see how Timmy shapes up, hopefully we can get him fit enough for the Sussex game.”
After the Worcestershire top order had failed for the second time in the match it was left to the tail to set a challenging target, but only 32 runs were added on the third morning before they were bowled out for 227.
No runs had been added to the overnight score when Glamorgan got their first breakthrough as Matthew Waite was bowled off an inside edge by Jamie McIlroy.
Waite is Worcestershire’s leading run-scorer this season and his innings of 45 was the highest score by his team in this match. His wicket left Worcestershire eight wickets down and only 45 runs in front.
Van der Gugten completed his five-wicket haul when he had Josh Tongue caught at point by Byrom. Joe Leach scored 24, an innings that included the only six of the match, before he was bowled by a ball that kept low from James Harris. As the last wicket fell Worcestershire were 78 runs in front.
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The pitch started slow and without much bounce and these features only became more pronounced as the match wore on. Despite this, the Worcestershire bowlers did not have enough runs to defend.
Lloyd and Byrom took Glamorgan to 34 without loss at lunch, meaning they needed anther 45 runs to win after the interval. The two carried on as they had started after the break as they saw their side home with an unbroken stand of 82.