It was a day for the statistics lovers at Colwyn Bay. Records tumbled again as Lancashire’s South African duo, Ashwell Prince and Alviro Petersen, carried on where they’d left off putting on an exhibition of batting. With ease they pushed their partnership past 300, then 400, then 500.
As it passed 339 it became the best third-wicket partnership against Glamorgan, beating the mark set by Essex’s Ravi Bopara and Andy Flower in 2006. It then smashed through Lancashire’s third-wicket record partnership of 364 set by Messrs Atherton and Fairbrother in 1990. And still it kept going, runs flowing round the ground with consummate ease.
Then it went on to break a record that had stood for 87 years, to become the highest partnership scored by a Lancashire pairing. That record was 371 made by two cricketers of some considerable pedigree: Frank Watson and George Ernest Tyldesley. Watson made over 23,000 first-class runs for Lancashire and Tyldesley more runs for the county than anyone.
The 400 partnership arrived after lunch, and was shortly followed by Petersen passing 250 and then in the next over Prince passed 200. They’d made complete mincemeat of Glamorgan’s bowling figures and had no intention of stopping. On it marched, to become only the 13th instance of a 500-run partnership in the history of all first-class cricket.
The partnership, worth 501, was only broken once Prince had decided to fling his bat around, holing out to long-off for a career best 261 that had come at more than a run a ball. Twenty-four hours and two minutes had passed between the fall of the second wicket and fall of the third. It had lasted 89 overs and the score had flown along at over five an over.
That brought Stephen Croft, nursing a severe case of pad rash, to the crease with Petersen threatening to throw Steve James’s innings of 309 at Colwyn Bay out of the record books. That record remains intact though, Petersen too holed out to long-off for a career best 286. There was a quick half-century by Croft which included some impressively clean hitting down the ground and the declaration finally came when James Faulkner chipped to short extra cover for 21.
Glen Chapple, playing in only his second match of the season, picked up the first three Glamorgan wickets. All his years of experience came into play on a pitch that had done nothing for any of the other seam bowlers all match, as he managed to find a hint of movement cleaning up Jacques Rudolph after he’d made a quickfire 32. Nothing further was added to the score of 35 when Colin Ingram got a faint inside edge behind.
A partnership of 25 between Chris Cooke and David Lloyd was showing some promise when Cooke completely misread the line after Chapple had delivered two balls outside off stump. He was fooled into thinking the third would be the same but the ex-Lancashire skipper had tightened the line and removed the bail from the off stump with Cooke playing no shot leaving Chapple with three wickets for 22 from his first nine overs
Things got no better for Glamorgan when James Faulkner changed from round to over the wicket to the left-handed William Bragg and angled one into his pads leaving the home side four down and still 480 runs away from the follow-on target.
A defiant 50-run partnership between David Lloyd and Mark Wallace was broken when the young spinner, Aaron Lilley, was brought into the attack. Further damage was inflicted by Lancashire’s other spinner, Simon Kerrigan, who trapped Craig Meschede on the crease as the day was drawing to a close. Glamorgan are in deep trouble as they head into the third day.
