Lloyd and Ingram leave Kent trailing

Glamorgan 175 for 4 (Lloyd 97*, Ingram 60) beat Kent 121 (Coles 31, Blake 30, Steyn 4-18, Hogan 3-12) by 54 runs
Scorecard

A rain affected game in Cardiff was dominated by a fantastic innings from David Lloyd who made a career best 97 not out as Glamorgan posted a formidable total of 175 for 4 from the 16 overs available to them. Lloyd put together a partnership with Colin Ingram that was worth 132 in less than 10 overs that settled the match.

A rate in excess of 11 an over from the outset was a mountainous task for Kent and when Dale Steyn claimed three early wickets there was only one winner as Glamorgan claimed victory by a massive 55 runs.

Lloyd, promoted to open in limited-overs cricket this season, has gone from strength to strength. He made his maiden List A fifty against these same opponents last week and here he breezed past his previous best Twenty20 score of 31 in no time and accelerated from there.

While it will be Lloyd's near-hundred that gets most of the plaudits, the efforts of Ingram, who is making up for lost time after injury forced him out of the first stage of the season, cannot be overlooked. When he came to the crease Glamorgan were 12 for 1 and David Griffiths was finding swing and seam movement.

Ingram had made 95 not out and 85 in his last two innings and his 60 here was a continuation of that fine form. He brought up his half century of just 21 balls and struck four sixes. It was in pursuit of another maximum that he fell, attempting to hit James Tredwell over long on, well caught by Alex Blake.

Glamorgan looked set for even more than their 175 with Lloyd marching towards a maiden century, but late wickets curtailed their scoring. No batsmen other than Lloyd and Ingram found a way to make run scoring look easy on this Cardiff pitch.

When Kent came out to bat they needed to get off to the best possible start and they had the opposite. Dale Steyn conceded just one run, a wide, and took the wicket of Daniel Bell-Drummond who was dismissed for a five-ball duck.

Steyn bowled three consecutive overs from the River Taff End and claimed a victim in each of them as Kent stumbled to 30-3 at the end of the fifth over.

Things only got worse from there for the visitors as Joe Denly and Darren Stevens fell cheaply. A spirited innings of 30 from Alex Blake held up the inevitable for a time, but when he fell attempting to hit an Ingram long hop into the stands only to find the waiting hands of Graham Wagg at midwicket, all hope was lost.

This was a chastening defeat for Kent who have relished big chases like this one in the NatWest T20 Blast so far this season, but in truth they never came close to challenging the target that they had been set.

Glamorgan remain top of the South Group with just one loss in six matches and a net run rate superior to any other team in the group. If they keep up this T20 form over the coming weeks a home quarter-final will be beckoning.