Bopara gets Essex campaign on track

The aggressive bowling of Shaun Tait and the batting of Ravi Bopara combined for Essex to ease them to their first T20 win of the season against Glamorgan.

Having restricted the home side to 144 for 8 thanks to three wickets from Tait, Bopara was guiding his side to an easy win before floodlight failure at the SWALEC stadium saw the match held up for 30 minutes. Once the lights had come back on, Bopara and Essex continued their serene progression towards victory. Bopara finished on 81 not out off 53 balls and Essex won with 14 balls to spare.

The target was par at best for Glamorgan, and when Jesse Ryder was dispatching the ball to the boundary with ease it looked nowhere near enough. When he was well caught by Andrew Salter on the midwicket boundary for 20 runs off just 10 balls the Essex run rate dropped dramatically. Bopara came to the rescue, first with Kishen Velani and then briefly with Ryan ten Doeschate to make the game a formality by the time the lights went out.

The Glamorgan innings started badly but they recovered well after the early loss of Mark Wallace. The keeper-batsman played out a somewhat fraught innings: in the over he was dismissed he was lucky not to be out caught twice before being bowled by Graham Napier for 5. The South African pairing of Colin Ingram and Jacques Rudolph then built a platform with a partnership of 46 off 33 balls.

Ingram rode his luck during his innings, edging over the keeper's head twice and surviving a chance off Reece Topley that should have been caught by Napier. He could not make the most of his luck and he was caught in the deep the next over by Bopara for 24. Rudolph was out the following over for 30.

Things only got worse for the Welsh county when Will Bragg went for 6 caught at long-off and Craig Meschede was run out four deliveries later without facing a ball. The procession of Glamorgan wickets continued when Andrew Salter was clean up by a thunderbolt yorker from Tait to leave the home side 83 for 6.

There was a recovery of sorts between Chris Cooke and Graham Wagg, who took the score past 100 before Wagg attempted one expansive drive too many and was brilliantly caught at mid-on by ten Doeschate for 14. Cooke went on to make 31 from 30 balls, the highest score of Glamorgan's stop-start innings, before he was well caught at long-on by ten Doeschate.

Essex were always favourite to win and despite losing both of their openers early Bopara appeared to have things under control. Fresh from his spell with Sunrisers Hydrabad at the IPL the England allrounder made it all look very easy as Essex bounced back from losing twice in two days on the opening weekend.