Tribe’s Lions heroics fuel Glamorgan’s belief on return to Championship elite

Bespectacled young batter shone on England duty in Australia and is primed to make a splash in Division One

The daffodils were in suitable bloom in Cardiff, swathes of them, creeping from under the trees in Bute Park, yolky heads bobbing in the spring sunshine. A few hundred metres up the road, Glamorgan’s players were gathering at Sophia Gardens before their biggest season in years, back in Division One of the County Championship for the first time since 2005.

Their campaign last year was a slow burner but blossomed, a close-knit side playing confidently. Alongside a thousand runs each from Colin Ingram and Kiran Carlson were eye-catching performances from two talented then 21-year-olds, Ben Kellaway and Asa Tribe, who went on to be picked for the Lions tours in the winter. In their shellacking by Australia A in the unofficial Test, Tribe hit an unbeaten 129, which was enough to get him a namecheck from the England managing director, Rob Key, in pre-season media musings – the only non-capped player to be mentioned.

In Cardiff’s busy indoor school, Tribe stands out because of his specs, now a kind of calling card. He has tried lenses, but found the vision was not as good. He is also remarkably composed, on and off the pitch, moving from the Glamorgan second team last April to the first, the Lions and then a franchise gig with Paarl Royals in the South Africa T20 within the space of a year. Has he allowed himself to think of even higher honours?

“There’s a bit of talk around it and it’s quite easy to get sucked up into that thinking,” he says. “But if I don’t put in performances like I did last season, it becomes irrelevant whether there’s hype or not.

“There’s the new challenge of moving from Div Two to Div One and I’m sure there’ll be more homework done on the way I play. I don’t buy into the stress thing because being stressed doesn’t make the situation any different. It just makes it worse.”

He reminds his captain Carlson of another Glamorgan player. “Asa’s a very impressive young man,” he says. “He’s a very talented boy, a great athlete, but he is just a sponge. He just wants to ask questions, gain knowledge, know how to improve.

“If he struggles in one area, he’ll work on it until he doesn’t struggle on it any more. He’s just got that hunger to succeed. I can relate it back to when Marnus [Labuschagne] first came over. They are very similar characters, very similar types of player in terms of the way they train, their work ethic.” It is high praise to be compared with one of Glamorgan’s favourite sons.

Tribe grew up in St Lawrence, Jersey. “It’s a nice little island and it’s lovely in the summer,” he says. “It’s got lovely beaches, everything’s on your doorstep and it’s home.” Was it an outdoorsy kind of childhood? “Absolutely, I think that’s key. I hope everyone has one of those, it’s really important to get outside.”

He and his older brother, Zak, were as cricket mad as their dad and the two Tribes went to play for Jersey. Asa made his first one‑day international century against Papua New Guinea when he was 19. He chose Cardiff University because of the UCCE (University Centre of Cricketing Excellence) programme and graduated in sports performance analysis last year, another glass in a champagne summer.

Winter continued in the same vein. His unbeaten 129 against an Australia A attack that included Jhye Richardson (Yorkshire) and Fergus O’Neill (Nottinghamshire) was a high point in the debris of the Ashes tour even if his hungry mind would have liked something more to chew on afterwards.

“That was a massive step in terms of where I could push myself, and to be not out at the end was quite a big thing because it showed resilience and grit and determination.

Post-game, you get some feedback, but not as a whole of how the trip went. I did ask Freddie [Flintoff] for a little bit of that, but he just said I played well. I’d like to have a little bit more, where can I get better, all these kind of things.”

From there to South Africa, where he caught the eye of Kevin Pietersen and R Ashwin, for a different time. “You play in front of very passionate fans and they get quite a few in the stadium. It’s a great experience and a great way to keep staying relevant.

“I know that probably doesn’t sound like the most important thing, but with this kind of franchise world and where it’s going, you have to stay relevant in people’s eyes. As well as it being a great way to see what I can do, playing with guys from all around the world.”

Carlson says: “I have no doubt that he’ll play a lot of Test cricket for England. His ceiling’s incredibly high. Hopefully this summer, in the first block, he’s going to be able to put a marker down and show people how much he’s improved.”

Another intriguing storyline in a reinvigorated Championship that springs to life on Friday.