Glamorgan stroll to easy win

Openers Jim Allenby and Jacques Rudolph scored half-centuries to help Glamorgan to a comfortable seven-wicket win over Middlesex in their Royal London Cup opener at Cardiff.

After Glamorgan had put Middlesex in to bat, they restricted the opposition to 174 for 8 in their 50 overs with Michael Hogan and David Lloyd, playing his first 50-over match, claiming three wickets apiece.

Middlesex were given some hope after being reduced to 90 for 8 with an unbeaten 84-run partnership between Neil Dexter and Steven Finn in nearly 25 overs. But in-form Glamorgan carried on from Friday night when they confirmed their place in the NatWest T20 Blast quarter-finals with an eight-wicket win over Gloucestershire.

On the same wicket as the T20 match, Allenby and Rudolph helped to make light work of the target, which the county reached with 13.4 overs remaining.

Hogan had put a huge dent in Middlesex's top order reducing them to 33 for 3 inside 11 overs. Dawid Malan went for a first-ball duck, having shouldered arms to Hogan's fifth ball, before Australian opener Chris Rogers was caught off a leading edge at mid-on by Lloyd, diving forward, to give Hogan his second wicket. And Hogan also grabbed the prize wicket of Eoin Morgan who was caught behind attempting an expansive drive.

The score became 53 for 4 when 19-year-old seamer Dewi Penrhyn-Jones, making his senior county debut, struck in his second over to have Ryan Higgins caught behind.

Nick Gubbins did strike Penrhyn-Jones for six over deep backward square but he became the first of two more catches for Mark Wallace behind the stumps off slow left-armer Dean Cosker, whose 10 overs only conceded 19 runs.

After Gubbins' demise, John Simpson was the first of three wickets for Lloyd, who finished with figures of 3 for 25 from eight overs, in the space of only nine balls. Both Toby Roland-Jones, who went for a third-ball duck, and Tim Murtagh were caught at slip by Allenby.

At that stage Middlesex would have done well to get to three figures but Dexter and Finn batted sensibly in a bid to see out the overs, which they achieved without too many scares.

In reply, Allenby and Rudolph seemed in total control of the run chase as they reached 50 for no wicket in the first 10 overs. They had reached 136 for the first wicket when Rudolph was caught behind attempting to pull Finn. He went for 61 from 70 balls with seven fours.

Allenby followed him back to the pavilion in the next over after being caught on the long-off boundary by Roland-Jones off new England Lions recruit Ravi Patel. Glamorgan were well on the way to victory but not before Murray Goodwin departed, caught at mid-on off Patel with 22 runs still required.