Ex-Ruthin cricketer to captain Wales at Over-40 World Cup in South Africa

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A BBC quizmaster from Denbighshire who has played alongside England cricket legends Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard will captain the Wales team at the sport’s first ever Over-40s World Cup in South Africa.

Gareth Edwards, 43, from Ruthin, jets out this week with the Welsh squad that also includes his former Wales Minor Counties and Colwyn Bay team-mate Sion Morris for the tournament which starts on February 19.

Former Ysgol Brynhyfryd, Ruthin, pupil Gareth is no stranger to rubbing shoulders with sporting superstars as the producer of the BBC’s much-loved Question of Sport for many years but long before that he teamed up with Flintoff and Hoggard with England Under-19s on a tour of Zimbabwe.

Gareth, an off-spinner, also played first class cricket for Glamorgan before deciding that the full-time game was too all-consuming and moving into the world of television with the BBC as part of the QoS production team.
International cricket is familiar to Gareth, a graduate of University College London, who also played over 50 times for Wales at various schoolboy age levels and even spent a spell playing cricket in Australia.

His work for the BBC in Manchester has seen him produce a number of quiz programmes for the BBC apart from QoS and he is currently in charge of The Weakest Link.

He began his club career with his hometown club, Ruthin, where his dad, former Brynhyfryd headmaster Roger Edwards, was a stalwart who once took over 100 wickets in a season with his medium pace seamers.

Gareth has also turned out for Newport, Colwyn Bay and Bowdon, in Cheshire, and he currently plays for Elton in the Manchester League and in 2022 helped them win the treble of league, cup and 20/20 cup, while in the course of that career he has taken over 1,000 wickets.

His close friend Sion Morris has also had a notable cricket career, rattling up over 20,000 runs for Colwyn Bay in 24 years at the club which he captained for ten seasons.

He notched up two Welsh Cup wins, one of them as captain in 2015, and was Man of the Match in the 2023 final, following up 125 in the semi-final with three for 62 with the ball and then a top-score of 76 as the Bay beat favourites Swansea by seven wickets.

The prolific batsman is in the top three all-time leading run scorers in the Liverpool Competition and cracked 100 against England Over 40s in Wales’ first ever Over 40s international last summer.

When asked about the task facing his Welsh side at the World Cup, Gareth said: “We will clearly be up against some very strong cricketing nations, who have selected some players of undoubted pedigree and international experience.

“Our squad is made up of club players but we are determined to give it our best shot and put Wales on the world cricketing map.

“There are some very good players in the other sides including Nick Compton who played Test cricket for England and Pakistan and India have players with top level experience.

“The Welsh team is largely self-funded but we have been very grateful to receive some sponsorship, in my case from Ruthin businessman Gary Teeson.”

The Over-40s World Cup starts on February 19, with Wales’s first game against host nation South Africa and lasts three weeks.

Gareth added: “I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a great honour to captain my country, something I first did some 35 years ago, at Under-13 level.”