Mike Powell to leave Glamorgan at end of season

Glamorgan Cricket has announced today that batsman, and 2011 Beneficiary Mike Powell is to leave the county at the end of this season.

Having made his debut, with a double-hundred against Oxford University, in 1997, Powell has spent 15 seasons in the Glamorgan First XI, and this year was awarded a richly-deserved Benefit Year.

Powell’s debut double-hundred made him the Club’s youngest-ever double centurion in first-class cricket at the age of 20 years and 120 days. Since then, he has been a member of Glamorgan’s County Championship winning squad in 1997, as well as being in the Welsh county’s side which played at Lord’s in the B&H Final against Gloucestershire in 2000, and also at Edgbaston on Twenty20 Finals Day in 2004.

He was also a member of the Glamorgan Dragons side that won the National League title in 2002 and 2004, and in all of these years, Mike played some vital innings which contributed to the Welsh county’s success, not least when he top-scored with 74 at Canterbury in 2002 as the Glamorgan Dragons clinched a thrilling four-run victory over the Kent Spitfires to lift the National League title.

In all, Mike scored 25 first-class hundreds for Glamorgan – only seven batsmen in the Club’s long and proud history have scored more – whilst he appeared in 209 first-class matches, scoring an aggregate of 12,377 runs. Mike played in 201 List A games, as well as in 44 matches in the Twenty20 Cup, for the Glamorgan Dragons. He was capped in 2000 by Glamorgan, and in 2004-05 he went on the England A tour to the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka.

Glamorgan Cricket’s Managing Director of Cricket, Colin Metson, said: “It is always a sad day when a player leaves a club, but even more so when that player has been part of the fabric of the Club for so long. Mike has been with Glamorgan Cricket since making his debut in 1997, and during that time made significant contributions towards our one-day trophy successes in the early 2000’s as well as being very close to full England honours. We wish him well in the remainder of his Benefit season and in his cricketing future.”