Marchant de Lange leads Gloucestershire fightback against Glamorgan

Marchant de Lange played a key role with bat and ball as Gloucestershire staged a spirited fightback on the opening day of the Vitality County Championship Division Two match against Glamorgan at Cheltenham.

The South African fast bowler scored 46 not out and shared in a record-breaking last-wicket stand of 75 with Ajeet Singh Dale (32) as the home side recovered from 88 for eight at lunch to post 179 in their first innings.

De Lange then took two for 21 in six overs with the ball as Glamorgan subsided to 133 for seven by the time bad light brought a premature close with 3.5 overs unused.

Timm van der Gugten was the pick of the Glamorgan bowlers, returning season-best figures of five for 59 to justify skipper Sam Northeast’s decision to field first.

All-rounder

But his efforts were matched by Gloucestershire’s overseas all-rounder Beau Webster, who produced a startling three-wicket burst in 12 balls on a day when 17 wickets fell.

Kiran Carlson top-scored for Glamorgan with 37, but the Welsh county still trail by 46 runs with three first-innings wicket remaining.

Although the pitch was initially low and slow and the new ball moved off the seam, there could be no mitigating circumstances to explain away an abject surrender that saw the home side lose eight wickets before lunch.

When Matt Taylor was comprehensively bowled by Van der Gugten with the score on 104 shortly following the resumption, the end of the innings appeared to be in sight.

But De Lange and Singh Dale had other ideas and their stand surpassed the 73 made by John Mortimore and Jack Davey in 1972, the previous highest last-wicket partnership for Gloucestershire against Glamorgan.

Glamorgan progressed to 24 without loss and 57 for one in reply before Gloucestershire started making major in-roads, with Webster and De Lange leading the charge to leave the hosts marginally ahead at the end of the opening day.