Rothesay County Championship, Division One, County Floor, Hove (day two)
Glamorgan 155: Kellaway 33, Dickson 31; Unadkat 4-29 & 42-0
Sussex 521: Coles 224*, Hughes 72, Haines 48; Norton 3-119
Glamorgan (2pts) path Sussex (7pts) by 324 runs with 10 wickets standing
James Coles made a powerful career-best 224 not out as Sussex constructed a commanding place after two days in opposition to Glamorgan within the County Championship at Hove.
The 22-year-old helped Sussex’s final 4 wickets placed on 232 in a complete of 521, their highest of the season.
Glamorgan went in once more with a deficit of 358 however openers Asa Tribe and Zain ul-Hassan reached 42-0 in 12 overs earlier than the shut, together with three from Dom Goodman, introduced into the Sussex staff as substitute for Henry Crocombe ,who has been referred to as into England’s squad for the second Check as cowl for Sussex colleague Ollie Robinson (sore knee).
Coles scored 1,032 runs with 4 tons of in his debut Division One marketing campaign in 2025 however got here into the sport with a modest 253 Championship runs in 12 innings.
There was a touch that he was coming again into type when he made an unbeaten 63 for England Lions in opposition to South Africa A earlier this week and he struck 22 fours and took benefit of a brief boundary to pepper the pavilion with the vast majority of his 11 sixes.
Glamorgan should have hoped they may preserve their first innings arrears right down to manageable proportions when Tom Worth was sixth out at 289 and the deficit 134.
However Coles and the decrease order had different concepts and a punishing last-wicket stand of 103 – a brand new file in opposition to Glamorgan – between Coles and Jaydev Unadkat, of which the quantity 11 contributed 12, solely added to their ache.
Coles timed the ball exquisitely from the beginning and he went to his 50 within the over earlier than lunch by taking 15 off the in any other case parsimonious Tim van der Gugten, together with two sixes.
A century seemed inevitable even then and a straight drive off the identical bowler took Coles to his ninth first-class hundred, however he was solely warming up.
Jack Carson contributed a strong 46 to a seventh-wicket stand of 114 and though Sussex misplaced three wickets in including 15 runs Coles discovered a dependable ally in Unadkat as he went by means of the gears in opposition to a tiring assault.
Unadkat was dropped on eight and Coles took that as a cue to go for his photographs. Two sixes off Tom Norton, one in all which sailed out of the bottom took the lead previous 300 and even with a double hundred in sight he nonetheless attacked.
It should have led to his dismissal, however he was dropped by Mason Crane on the mid-wicket boundary in the identical over that Crane and Sean Dickson practically collided going for a catch which neither took.
A boundary by means of backward level off off-spinner Ben Kellaway took Coles to his double hundred and when he walked off after Unadkat was lbw to Crane each Glamorgan participant sportingly shook his hand.
It ended up being a chastening day for Glamorgan, however to their credit score it wasn’t till Coles and Unadkat got here collectively that they began to look ragged within the area.
In the course of the first two periods that they had chipped away with van der Gugten and Kellaway going for lower than three runs an over, a substantial achievement particularly when Coles was discovering his vary.
Dan Hughes had made 72 earlier than he was pinned by a grubber from Kellaway however that was one of many few balls which misbehaved in batting circumstances that have been in stark distinction to the primary day when 12 wickets fell below heavy cloud cowl.
That ought to give Glamorgan hope that they’ll nonetheless save the sport in addition to the data that on this fixture in 2023 they conceded a first-innings deficit of 358 however escaped with a draw after scoring 737 of their second innings.
Report by ECB Reporters’ Community, supported by Rothesay.
