A maiden first-class hundred from Oli Carter was the highlight on day one of the LV= Insurance County Championship match between Glamorgan and Sussex in Cardiff as Sussex reached 245 for seven at the close.
Carter came to the crease with his team in trouble at 29 for two and finished the day on 113 not out. The next highest score was the 55 made by Tom Clark as regular wickets pegged back Sussex’s first innings.
Andrew Salter bowled 33 overs in the day, conceding just 65 runs, as the Glamorgan seamers rotated from the other end.
Carter and Harry Crocombe were batting together at the close of play with Sussex still closing in on a second batting point.
Having put Sussex into to bat, Glamorgan looked very dangerous with the new ball as Michael Neser and James Weighell picked up the wickets of Tom Alsop and Tom Haines early on. It could have been an even better start for Glamorgan with both openers getting a let off early on with chances going down in the slips.
An excellent stand of exactly 100 between Clark and Carter took Sussex past the lunch break without any further damage with both looking in solid form. When the wicket of Clark arrived, it was from a loose shot as he tried to go over the top off the bowling of Andrew Salter only for the ball to loop up to Colin Ingram at mid-on.
Carter moved passed his previous career best of 72 in an innings that showed a lot of maturity for a 20-year-old in just his 10th first class match. Even as wickets fell from the other end he stood firm, reaching his century from 208 deliveries.
Hogan returned to the attack to claim the wicket of Tim Seifert with a ball that ducked back into the New Zealander to bowl him for 5 as Glamorgan chipped away at the Sussex middle order.
Salter bowled a mammoth spell from the River Taff End, sending down 26 overs unchanged. He claimed his second wicket when he had Danial Ibrahim caught down the leg side off wicket-keeper Chris Cooke who had an excellent day with the gloves. The highlight for Cooke was when he got Delray Rawlins stumped while standing up to the seam of David Lloyd. The batter over balanced slightly and Cooke whipped off the bails to reduce Sussex to 192 for six.
Unfortunately for Cooke he hobbled off the field, with Colin Ingram stepping in to keep wicket.
Sussex moved passed 200 to claim their first bonus point but, shortly after, lost their seventh wicket when a ball from Neser got big on Archie Lenham and the batter edged the ball into his stumps.
On a pitch that had markedly more bounce in it than the one that was used in the Vitality Blast match in Cardiff on Friday it was still tricky to score freely, which made Carter’s first century all the more impressive with only Clark looking anywhere near as solid at the crease. It will be interesting to see just how telling Carter’s innings will be once Glamorgan have batted in their first innings.
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Oli Carter said: “I’m obviously delighted with my knock. I hope it puts us in a good position tomorrow and hopefully we can crack on and win the game.
“It was just all about being patient. We had lost (Haines) and (Alsop) early on so it made it more important for me and Clark to build a partnership and just progress from there.
“It was tricky. You just have to be patient and really wait for it. It is a bit slow in patches so you just had to really be patient and wait for the bad ball to come and try to rotate from those good balls.”
Andrew Salter, who took two for 65 for Glamorgan, said that it had been a “decent day of graft for us out there”, adding: “We would have like maybe a couple more towards the back end of the day. I thought we had a sniff there with the new ball.
“Hopefully, we can pick up a couple tomorrow morning. The wicket played quite well, placid at times. It was a case of trying to be patient, build some pressure with the ball and hopefully get some wickets that way.”
