No need to panic, says Wallace

By Richard Thomas

Glamorgan captain Mark Wallace is refusing to over-react after his side slipped to their third successive LV County Championship defeat which sees them rooted to the bottom of the Division Two table.

Hampshire’s Hamza Riazuddin condemned Glamorgan to another defeat – they have also lost to Leicestershire and Derbyshire – by hitting the winning runs from the penultimate ball of the match.

It is not yet Glamorgan’s worst start to a Championship season, however. That came when they lost their first five encounters in their only foray into Division One in 2005.

Glamorgan will hope to turn the situation around very soon, and the arrival of Marcus North at the beginning of May will certainly bolster the middle order.

“We don’t become a bad side overnight,” said Wallace. “We came into the season with a lot of optimism and that has not disappeared.There is no need to panic and there is a lot left to play this season and I am not too despondent.

“We were outstanding for three days but we let ourselves down on the first day with the bat. The third day was the time we could have put the nail in the coffin by scoring more runs and leaving them a bigger target.”

Wallace also defended his decision to declare Glamorgan’s first innings on 103 for nine. It caused a lot of surprise and criticism. But Wallace said he stood by the move.

“The declaration was designed to try to put some positive impetus into our game,” he explained. “You could argue the 10 or 15 more runs would have proved vital, but the opposite side of the argument is that we managed to get a wicket of Hampshire captain Jimmy Adams on that evening.

“It is hard to second guess yourself and who is to say Adams would have not got a hundred on that second day. So I am happy with the declaration and am keen to play some positive cricket and do some aggressive things to win games."
 
 

Date: 23/04/2012 20:56:03 by Richard Thomas
In: Today | Glamorgan |