Hampshire Cricket History

Two shots of a new list, above the bar in the Robin Smith Suite (Pavilion). Giles White asked if we could display details of capped players as he wants to increase the significance of the County Cap, especially among our young players. This new display (yesterday) lists all the Hampshire Players who won a cap and appeared at the Rose/Ageas Bowl and starts appropriately with RA Smith. These shots show Lisa from our local designers Grapefruit, applying one of the two lists and underneath List 2 – the most recent names. Who will be next?

PS You can enlarge any of these photos on screen simply by clicking on them.

I posted the previous thoughts about Herath at tea and just a few minutes later the Test was all over – England having lost their last six wickets for 31 runs. I wonder how close the man above might be to a Test recall? England have played four Tests in 2012, have lost all four and not reached a fifth day in any of them. Their innings totals have been 192, 160, 327, 72, 141, 252, 193 and 264.

Who might Carberry (or whoever) replace? Not Trott obviously although he had made only one ‘fifty’ in the previous seven innings – Strauss, Cook and Bell also have one half-century each in eight innings and Cook has five single figure scores in eight innings. Meanwhile, Pietersen has a best of 32 in eight innings and has a total of just 100 runs at an average of 12.5. Trott has scored 285 runs at 35.625. The other averages this calendar year are:

Prior 198 runs, average 33.0, Strauss 203 runs, average 25.38, Cook 173 runs, average 21. 63, Bell 116 runs, average 14.5,  Morgan 82 runs average 13.66 (Patel scored 2 & 9).

And if Carberry is selected for England before McKenzie returns to Eastleigh, Hampshire will not have an excess of batsmen.

Two days ago I mentioned Herath’s performance. At tea, England seem to be heading for defeat and Herath has taken 12 wickets in less than three days. He took 10 wickets in four first-class matches for Hampshire and five 40-over wickets in 5 matches.

I thought I might update readers about some of the displays around the ground (the Ageas Bowl). This is a cutting from last year about the clock that hangs on the West Wall of the Derek Shackleton bar. It does work but stops every time the electricity is switched off and is difficult to put right. No-one ever manages to restart it at the correct time so I switched it off permanently at  4.08 which was the time we won the title in 1961 when Danny Livingstone caught Bob Taylor off the bowling of Peter Sainsbury.

It’s Day Two of the first Sri Lanka Test and there are two aspects of the wicket-crazy day which may strike a chord with Hampshire followers. Firstly, interesting to see HMRKB Herath taking 6-74. He came to Hampshire of course in the early weeks of 2010 and seemed delightful but almost had more intials than first-class wickets, with a best of 4-98 and an average of 46.30. I’m not sure he turned a ball then and his best contribution was to stick with McKenzie as we struggled to a winning target at Trent Bridge.

The other aspect is to note how English batsmen struggle to play spin whether they stand still or use their feet. Of course when county cricketers are invited to experience a rare turning wicket, the ECB send their inspectors to impose points penalties and groundsmen respond by producing flat tracks. If you’re not sure to what I’m referring, compare the scorecards from the Rose Bowl last season v Notts and immediately after v Yorks. In the Notts match, 36 wickets fell in 305 overs. A fortnight later against Yorkshire 13 wickets fell in 335 overs and it’s unlikely that the game would have finished in eight days. I know which I’d rather watch.

It’s been difficult to elicit much interest in this Blog over the past couple of years so I’m heartened and grateful for over 70 visits yesterday and I’ll take it as a sign that it’s worth doing – many thanks/ I’ll be more active as long as the interest continues and feel free to add any comments/requests

I was at the Ageas Bowl yesterday and I’m off to Broadhalfpenny Down/the Bat & Ball today for the opening season gathering of the Hambledon Club which meets twice yearly to celebrate the great days of the 18th Century. Our speaker will be MJK Smith and the weather could not be better. Here’s to a good season ahead.

Here’s a delightful story about a team of Massai Warriors about to compete in South African T20. What should they wear?

See

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17475018

It’s 10.20 pm in Britain but two hours later in South Africa where this man lives. His name is Neil McCorkell and since it is now 23 March where he is, it’s his birthday and he is 100 today – only the second cricketer from Hampshire ever to reach that age. He was born in White Hart Lane Portsmouth, learned to play in church and school sides (Portsmouth Town School) and made his Hampshire debut in 1932 – before any other living English cricketer. When he started, he was playing with Tennyson, Brown, Mead and Kennedy, when he finished it was with Gray, Shackleton and Ingleby-Mackenzie. He played until 1951 then retired and moved to South Africa. Happy Birthday Neil!

The Association of Cricket Statisticians has just published the list of hours lost to rain by each county last season in the Championship (it’s complied by Glamorgan’s scorer/statistician Andrew Hignell)