Day 1: no play
Day 2: Fulton leads an urgent recovery
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Cardiff
Second day of four: Kent 91-3 v Glamorgan
GLAMORGAN won a useful toss yesterday and made quick use of it on a breezy afternoon when the new ball swung and seamed off an inevitably slightly moist pitch. Within 12 overs Kent were 21 for three, with Steve Watkin in the ascendant and Carl Hooper going the way of most of the returning warriors from the West Indies. But David Fulton stayed to make a valuable fifty and with determined assistance from Alan Wells, he restored the balance.
It was not until after tea on the second day that last year's champions and runners-up finally locked horns. Both had contrived victories in rain-ravaged opening games and in neither case is there any reason for the upward progression to cease. It was almost cricketing weather by the time play started in spite of a few muddy patches on the edge of the outfield. Perversely they would probably have delayed play further had this been a Test and the ground full but in his last season, just turned 65, that wealthy author Harold Bird was not going to waste the chance of some cricket. ``I've a lump in my throat already,'' he said as he contemplated his retirement with incomparable gloom.
David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, who is still taking soundings far and wide on whether Alec Stewart or Nasser Hussain should be chosen as Test captain, was an interested spectator as Matthew Walker padded up to the third ball and was lbw. At 20 Trevor Ward did the same to Gary Butcher's first ball and went the same way, whereupon Watkin produced an outswinger of perfect length for Hooper and Matthew Maynard took the catch at second slip.
Who knows whether Maynard is in serious contention for the national captaincy? He certainly tried all options yesterday and the fact that Robert Croft bowled 11 brisk overs and Dean Cosker six, showed his belief in a balanced attack and his will to make the pace in a game: Glamorgan bowled 42 overs in the 2.5 hours possible.
Fulton hits the ball well through midwicket for a man with only one championship hundred and he cut and steered well too yesterday, mainly at the expense of Darren Thomas.
Wells gave sturdy support and Kent wriggled off the hook but these are progressive times for Glamorgan with the £4million ground development project about to begin. Last season's triumph has been commemorated in Daffodil Days, written by Grahame Lloyd and published yesterday by the Cardiganshire firm, Gomer, at £16.99.
Day 3: Glamorgan inspired by Maynard
By Scyld Berry at Cardiff
IF Test matches were staged in front of a thousand or so spectators, without a television camera in sight, like Glamorgan's championship match with Kent yesterday, Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain would not be the only serious contenders for the England captaincy.
Matthew Maynard has all the attributes of hand and eye a batsman could want and, as Glamorgan's captain, debonair in his sunhat, he leads exemplarily.
When play resumed at 1.45 in the match between last year's champions and runners-up, the freshness and sunny vigour of the day itself was reflected in Glamorgan's play under Maynard's command.
Kent resumed at 91 for three and were soon dismissed for 166. The pitch was not capricious: it was simply lively cricket by the champions, featuring keen good-length bowling and safe catching, not least by Maynard himself at second slip, and rusty early-season batting by Kent, whose main deficiency of last season has not yet been cured.
But modern Test matches are not played in such a relaxed environment as Sophia Gardens, not by England anyway, and Maynard has never yet been able to keep his cool amid the heat and roar of international battle.
At 32 he might still change, if he were promised a full series as a swashbuckler at number six, but he could not be considered as an England captain until he had fulfilled himself in that role first; and such players, when they are made Test captains, so often feel they can no longer swashbuckle and thus lose their principal merit.
If Stewart should be appointed as England's captain, and has to keep wicket in Test matches as well, Steve Marsh of Kent will be one of the few with any idea of how onerous such a combination of duties can be; and Marsh is no top-order batsman, though yesterday he tried a cover-drive of Caribbean, Kanhai-ish style, only to edge a catch behind the wicket, as Kent's lower order for once failed to bail out the upper.
In the whole of Test cricket only three wicketkeepers have ever captained a country for 10 Tests or more. The first was Percy Sherwell, who captained South Africa at the turn of the century; the second Gerry Alexander, of West Indies, who stood down after 18 Tests to make way for Frank Worrell; and the third Andy Flower, of Zimbabwe, who resigned because he found it impossible to captain and keep wicket and bat in the top order.
The temptation to make Stewart keep wicket again this summer would not be so great if a successor had been groomed.
England's selectors, instead, have left themselves little or no room to manoeuvre as they chose to think that Jack Russell and Stewart, two of the half-dozen oldest players in Test cricket, would continue to do the job between them for the next two or three years, and therefore took a couple of teenagers on the 'A' tour to Sri Lanka. Not the best planning for the short term.
And the longer the Stewart debate goes on, the more polarised the two viewpoints become. To the school of which Ian Botham is a leading voice, it is obvious that Stewart should keep wicket for he is one of the world's leading all-rounders and England can then field five bowlers. To the other school, the move would diminish England's leading run-scorer of the winter by roughly half: it would be tantamount to making Sachin Tendulkar or Steve Waugh keep wicket.
But there are two other considerations. One is the attitude of the man himself: if Stewart does not want to keep wicket, he is not likely to be any more effective than he was last summer, when he averaged 24 against Australia.
The second is that the wear and tear might be such that by this time next year England might find themselves in need of a new keeper-bat for the World Cup. He is 35 already, only junior to Courtney Walsh and South Africa's offspinner Pat Symcox among contemporary Test cricketers.
Glamorgan's innings, which began after tea, had a shaky start as Steve James was undone by a ball which kept low, even by Sophia standards.
Adrian Dale was also dismissed by Dean Headley, caught at second slip from a forward push, but for all the fall of wickets contrivance might still be needed between the captains tomorrow if there is to be a definite result.
It has been the same all around the country so far this season as matches have been rained off or staged in such cold that it is a tribute to the new technology of handwarmers that the only serious injury while fielding has been suffered by the Australian Michael Slater.
To begin the county season in mid-April, earlier than ever before, is a further example of our pre-occupation with quantity.
A system which grants 16 points for winning half-a-match or less should be reformed as well.
Kent won their first match of this season after dismissing Middlesex once, taking 10 wickets in all.
Fair enough that captains should collude to defeat the weather, as they do not have to do in sunny Australia, and even forfeit innings, but eight points for winning in such circumstances would be quite sufficient.
Day 4: Glamorgan steered to safety
By Edward Bevan at Cardiff
Kent (166 & 142-3 dec) drew with Glamorgan (63-3 dec & 212-8)
DESPITE an enterprising declaration by Steve Marsh which left Glamorgan to score 246 from 60 overs, last season's championship winners and runners-up had to settle for a draw at Sophia Gardens.
Against expectations, Matthew Maynard declared Glamorgan's first innings 103 runs behind and shortly before play began decided to take up Marsh's offer of a run chase.
After David Fulton (71 not out) had scored his second half-century of the game and Adrian Dale taken his first championship wickets for two years, Glamorgan made a positive reply until their openers departed in quick succession.
They needed someone to play a lengthy innings but no one threatened after Dale had struck an enterprising 54 and Tony Cottey was caught off Carl Hooper near the square-leg boundary.
Robert Croft, mixing caution with aggression, gave his team a slim chance of victory but, when Adrian Shaw chipped Matthew Fleming to mid-on, Glamorgan's aim was to save the game.