GLAMORGAN have embarked on a three-year programme to build a team that is “recognisably Welsh”, but it took an Australian, a Geordie and a Yorkshireman to restore some national pride after they had gone into familiar and apparently terminal decline against Surrey, the second division leaders, yesterday.

There was no shame in that because all three players fall in line with the strategy outlined by Paul Russell, the Glamorgan chairman, in defending their dismal record of only one championship win this season. First, they are looking to predominantly Welsh players developed by their own academy, second to players from other counties who need a change and third to overseas players demonstrably better than anyone else they have got.

Mark Cosgrove, the South Australian heavyweight, who is going home afer this game to play in an A team tournament, definitely comes into the latter category, and he launched Glamorgan’s reply to Surrey’s 348 with a typically pugnacious 63 off 64 balls, including two sixes and nine fours.

Once Rikki Clarke had him caught low down at mid-off, however, the local boys lost their way against the spin of Nayan Doshi and Ian Salisbury and six wickets had gone down for 65, three of them in six balls, when Alex Wharf, born at Bradford, joined Nicky Peng, signed this season from Durham.

Glamorgan still needed 52 to avoid the follow-on, and, in all probability, defeat inside two days, but Peng and Wharf put on 119 in 38 overs.

It had looked so straightforward for Surrey, but their seam bowlers could not get as much out of the pitch as Glamorgan’s had done, their spinners bowled too many loose balls on a pitch that was already turning and their frustration was showing when Mohammad Akram removed Peng and Wharf in the same over.

Peng had made 59, including eight fours, when he fell legbefore; Wharf had struck 60 off 103 balls, with a six and seven fours, when he pulled fiercely to mid-wicket. But, between them, they had breathed new life into Glamorgan and Robert Croft and David Harrison, as Welsh as they come, added another 88 to give them an unlikely lead. Harrison hit 36 and Croft finished proudly unbeaten on 48.