Squad announced for visit of Glamorgan

Sussex are straight back into Specsavers County Championship action on Bank Holiday Monday with Glamorgan visiting The 1st Central County Ground.

Jason Gillespie has named an unchanged 13-man squad for his side’s fourth match in this year’s competition.

After narrowly missing out on victory, but taking maximum bonus points in this week’s draw against Northamptonshire, Sussex sit in sixth place in a congested division two table with 36 points. Just seven points separate the side from Gloucestershire in third place.

Four Sussex batsmen have now made hundreds in this year’s competition: Ben Brown, Chris Jordan, Phil Salt and Stiaan van Zyl. Luke Wells also came close with his 98 not out during the win against Durham.

Wells is the side’s second highest run scorer, ten run behind van Zyl who has 253 at an average of nearly 65.

Mir Hamza’s six wickets at Wantage Road make him the side’s leading Championship wicket-taker this term. He has 12 wickets at an average of 23.25

“The lads’ efforts on the last day at Northampton were excellent,” Sussex head coach Jason Gillespie said, “I thought we bowled pretty decently as a unit and Mir Hamza was top class.

“In the end, the pitch didn’t break up enough for us to force victory and credit must go to Adam Rossington and Ben Hutton for their resistance.

“We know we have areas to improve on including making sure we are not finding ourselves around 100 for five as often, but it was good to see three batsmen score hundreds this week. That’s is definitely something to build on.

“Glamorgan will be full of confidence after a good win against Derbyshire and we know we’ll have to play well if we are going to compete next week, as you do in any County Championship match.”

Sussex Squad

Ben Brown (capt/wk), Danny Briggs, Laurie Evans, Harry Finch, Tom Haines, Mir Hamza, Chris Jordan, Abi Sakande, Phil Salt, Stiaan van Zyl, Jared Warner Luke Wells, David Wiese

Opposition

Glamorgan are one of three unbeaten sides in the division with two draws and this week’s thrilling two-wicket win at New Road. Forty-two points puts them in fourth place.

South African overseas player, Marnus Labuschagne has been the county’s leading light with the bat, having made 331 runs from his six innings to date, including two hundreds. Nick Selman, Billy Root and Tom Cullen have a century each.

Wickets have been harder to come by, with Labuschagne and Daniel Douthwaite Glamorgan’s joint leading wicket-takers with just six scalps each. All six of Douthwaites’ wickets came in debut against Derbyshire, however, and Sussex will be wary of the 22-year-old. He has already made an unbeaten fifty and an unbeaten century at Hove this summer in the Royal London One-Day Cup and for Loughborough MCCU respectively.

The Welshmen as a whole have a torrid recent record at The 1st Central County Ground, however, having not won a Championship match at the ground in 44 years.

Squad: Lloyd*, Selman, van der Gugten, de Lange, Hemphrey, Salter, Lawlor, Carlson, Root, Cullen, Douthwaite, Labuschagne, Wagg

Match Details

Gates open at 9.30am and play is scheduled to start at 11am on all four days of the match. E-tickets are available to buy online for each day’s play up until gates open on the day in question.

Thereafter, paper tickets will  be able to purchase in person from the Eaton Road entrance of The 1st Central County Ground.

Supporters who are unable to make it to The 1st Central County Ground will be able to watch every ball live accompanied by ball-by-ball commentary from BBC Sussex via the FREE live stream on the Sussex Cricket Match Day Centre.

The Match Day Centre also includes a live scorecard, live statistics and text commentary via the @SussexCCC twitter account.