By Andrew Hignell Mark Wallace has been the most successful wicket-keeper batsman in Glamorgan’s history.


His retirement means that there is nobody left on the Club’s playing staff who appeared for the Welsh county in first-class cricket during the 20th century, or who appeared for the Club before the advent of the T20 format in 2003.


In all, Mark appeared in exactly 600 matches for the Club’s 1st XI, including 262 appearances in first-class cricket, starting with his Championship debut against Somerset at Taunton in 1999 at the age of 17 years and 287 days old.


During his illustrious career Mark set a string of Club records, not least making 230 successive appearances in Championship cricket, besides scoring the most number of runs (11,052), and hundreds (15), by a specialist Glamorgan wicket-keeper in first-class cricket. His maiden hundred came at Sophia Gardens in 2002 against Derbyshire, and it was at the Cardiff ground in 2013 that he scored what proved to be his final Championship hundred as he made 101 against Essex. Three years earlier in 2010 Mark had also become the one and only Glamorgan wicket-keeper to have scored over 1,000 first-class runs in a season, whilst in 2005 at Canterbury, he was keeping wicket as Kent amassed 587 – the highest total against Glamorgan for which no byes were conceded.


On June 16th, 2003 Mark became the Club’s youngest-ever wicket- keeper to receive a county cap, aged just 21 years and 209 days old. He also led Glamorgan between 2012 and 2014, and was at the helm in 2013 when the Welsh county reached the final of the one-day knockout competition with Glamorgan playing at Lord’s against Nottinghamshire in the Yorkshire Bank40 competition. Although the day ended in defeat, Mark emulated the achievements of fellow Glamorgan legends Alan Jones and Matthew Maynard by leading out the side onto the hallowed turf at Lord’s for a major one-day final.


Overall, Mark is Glamorgan’s second most successful wicket-keeper in the Club’s history, having claimed 1071 victims in all formats of the game for the 1st XI, with 940 catches and 131 stumpings. His overall total is surpassed only by Eifion Jones, the wicket-keeper from the Welsh county’s Championship-winning team from 1969, who claimed 1233 scalps during his outstanding career. Given the high quality of his glovework, it was most fitting that, in what proved to be his final summer behind the stumps, he should twice equal the Club’s record for the most number of catches in a match, although he would have dearly loved his final appearance for his beloved Daffodil county, against Leicestershire at Grace Road, not to have ended with a golden duck.


06 / 07


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139 230 600 2003


11,052


Youngest wicket keeper to win Club cap


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Most runs by a wicket-keeper for the Club


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Appearances for Glamorgan 1st XI over 18 years


Consecutive Championship games


Career-best Score


MAKING WALES PROUD // GLAMORGANCRICKET.COM


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