Glamorgan lose out to Gloucestershire by 40 runs in cup game

South Wales Argus

14-07-2025

Marchant De Lange terrorised his former side with 4 for 20 including two wickets in an over to flip the game to send Glamorgan to 135 all out in pursuit of Gloucestershire's 175 for 6.
Ben Charlesworth's 55 set the way for the visitors despite various missed chances from Glamorgan before De Lange starred with the ball. Will Smale struck 43 in just 27 balls in the hosts' response before lack of support brought Glamorgan a third consecutive defeat and chances of qualification for the quarter-finals left looking ominous.
Gloucestershire won the toss and unsurprisingly batted first in the 28 degrees Celsius Cardiff sunshine on a wicket used already on the same day.
D'Arcy Short failed to continue his strong form shown in a Gloucestershire shirt this year as the dangerous Australian opener reverse-swept Ben Kellaway's first ball straight to short-third. Just one ball later Kellaway had another Australian dismissed. Bancroft loosely playing a flighted delivery back for a simple return catch. Kellaway had gone from not bowling in Glamorgan's previous game unable to defend 222 to having two wickets inside two balls in the powerplay.
Miles Hammond played flamboyantly as Charlesworth joined him as a third left-hander in the top four. The shuffle in order from last time out seemed to work for Gloucestershire despite their Blast struggles this season.
Dan Douthwaite brought the partnership to close just as it was beginning to motor, worth 44. Charlesworth, who initially struggled to get his strike rate above a-run-a-ball quickly began finding boundaries, targeting Mason Crane turning his leg-spinner into him as is the modern avoidance in T20 cricket.
The left-hander slog-swept Crane for six to bring up his 50 but not before he had been dropped at long-on twice previously by two different fielders. Glamorgan's fielding efforts with misfields, overthrows as well as these drops inevitably costing them.
Jack Taylor kept the innings going in his typical unorthodox fashion, swatting balls leg-side in particular his method to score quickly.
When wickets fell, overs tended to be quiet as batters needed a few balls of patience as demonstrated by Charlesworth and Ollie Price later on. However, runs came freely in periods of drought for Glamorgan, Ned Leonard continued to impress while his teammates were often expensive.
As have been their method to fourth place prior to this game, Glamorgan intended to come out guns blazing. Smale ramping in the powerplay before destructively striking through mid-wicket when the field changed on the way to his top-scoring knock.
After a positive start with Smale dominating the balls faced, partnerships with Kiran Carlson and Alex Horton gave for a healthy enough start to propel later on.
De Lange's two wickets in an over, including Kellaway first ball dented Glamorgan's momentum severely and naturally it came to the middle order to rescue them as has also been a theme.
Colin Ingram began doing so with some styling flicks and stand-and-deliver style drives through the offside before being outfoxed by Ajeet Singh Dale, forcing a hook to deep-backward-square, a feat replicated by Douthwaite to give the England Lions bowler a respectable 2 for 33 after an expensive start.
Elsewhere with wickets now an issue the Gloucestershire unit bowled as a team to restrict and leave the mission too much at 120 for 7 with just five overs as a resource, leaving for David Payne to chip in at the death with three wickets of his own. Importantly, the big hitting had already been and gone. Constant flows of wickets and going too hard too early costing the hosts.
Glamorgan batter Will Smale said: 'It was a difficult one [to take], we know how big today and Friday was and depending on how we came into it after a tough loss at The Oval.
'We knew playing our local rivals [it'd be a good game], we'd be up for it. We just didn't quite perform, dropped a few catches and they've got a good bowling attack.'
Gloucestershire seamer Marchant de Lange said: 'I think we put on a decent total. It was quite hard to hit it off a certain length so we tried to pass that message through as much as we could.
'We know T20 is a different beast. With the batters batting all the way through, ons thing we did really was keep taking wickets where you can really run up the run rate [required].
'Obviously we'd have hoped to be in a better position than this at this stage and try defend last year's title but we still have got to play our best for the next two games.'