Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

119 Chapter Fifteen International cricket comes to Swansea Bringing international cricket to Wales had always been one of the founding principles upon which Glamorgan CCC came into being during a meeting of the great and the good of the cricket world in South Wales at The Angel Hotel in Cardiff in July 1888. Within a few years, they had entered the Minor County Championship and were joint winners of the competition in 1900, as the Club’s committee gleefully discussed how the game could be further developed across South Wales. Flushed by their success in the Minor County competition, Glamorgan attempted to host the opening Test of the 1905 England-Australia series, but their bid to host a match at Cardiff failed by the slender margin of one vote, and it was to be over six decades later that the administrators eventually allocated international cricket to Wales. The match in question was the one-day international in July 1973 between England and New Zealand at the St. Helen’s ground. Ray Illingworth leads out the England team at Swansea for their Prudential Trophy Match with New Zealand in July 1973.