Hampshire Cricket History

There’s 30 minutes left of April 2012 and the sooner it’s gone the better. Here in Portsmouth it’s still hosing it down and  the BBC reports

“It has been the wettest April in the UK for over 100 years, with some areas seeing three times their usual average, figures from the Met Office show. Some 121.8mm of rain has fallen, beating the previous record of 120.3mm which was set in 2000.”

Presumably those figures don’t even include the current downpour. Roll on May Day!

(click on photo to see a larger version)

This is the English XI photographed “at Southampton” on 7 June 1864. It was a significant summer; the Hampshire County Cricket Club was formed at two meetings in August and September of the previous year and we began playing fixtures as a club in 1864.

The following information is from Andrew Renshaw

Scores and Biographies Vol VIII p320

On the Antelope Ground at Southampton, June 6, 7 and 8 1864
Twenty-Two of the Southampton Union Club v The ‘English’ Eleven

Union Club: 119 and 121 – The ‘English’ Eleven: 69 and 86

The Twenty-Two of the Southampton Union winning by 85 runs

The full scores are given, but no bowling figures

Top score for the Union was 17 and for the ‘English’ 28

The ‘English’ seem to have been outnumbered rather than out-played

Many thanks Andrew. Meanwhile the man far right in the splendid hat is Daniel Day (here, umpire with R Bodle). Day created the Antelope and East Hants Cricket Grounds and in that respect was as important to Hampshire as Thomas Lord was to London.

The photograph was sent by Carol Marks – for which many thanks.

We visit Northampton this week. We first played them in 1905 when they were admitted to the County Championship. In May, the two sides drew at Southampton and in the return match in July Northants won by 231 runs. Hampshire were a poor side and finished bottom of the table for the fourth consecutive season but in the next few years the first great group of professionals arrived – Mead, Brown, Kennedy and Newman – and Hampshire have only finished last once since then – in 1980.

1958, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie’s first year as captain was a particularly wet summer. Hampshire had no play on the first two days of the season and in 28 3-day Championship matches they lost just over 100 hours to rain – the equivalent of 16 of the scheduled 84 days. Nonetheless, Hampshire won 12 matches and were runners-up for the first time

I was caught out last week but at 1.30 pm both Cricinfo and BBC Sport are showing ALL today’s matches abandoned and not a ball bowled anywhere today. I’m assuming it’s correct in which case this match is in the list of shortest, rain-affected, no result matches at the Ageas/Rose Bowl (see NB below):

119.1 overs – August 2001 v Warwickshire,

126 overs – May 2007 v Lancashire,

136.1 overs – July 2007  v Sussex

154.2 overs – TODAY v Leicestershire* 

160 overs – May 2003 v Yorkshire

NB In 2005 we lost to Surrey by an innings in a match lasting 165 overs but that was a result game, not rain-affected. 

* 227 overs were lost in this match which is about 14.3 hours. So, by the end of April 2012 Hampshire have lost almost 30 Championship hours play to rain – the equivalent of five full days from the first 12 scheduled. In 2011 four of the sides in Hampshire’s division lost fewer hours in the whole season and Somerset with 31.75 hours are in sight too!

At last, on day eleven of the season Hampshire have a batting point. From the forecast that sadly may be that. There have been 155 overs so far in three days so adding two for change of innings 131 have been lost – that’s just over 8 hours.

It happens to be a rather beautiful song by Nick Drake but it wouldn’t suit today would it? Play was due to begin 15 minutes ago and not one match anywhere has started. I’ve suggested that the Ageas Bowl tends to suffer significantly from the rain but over the past two days only Canterbury (no delays) and Hove which lost half-a-dozen overs have fared better. Hampshire’s match has had 145 overs (plus innings changeover), so lost about 45 overs (nearly three hours). The forecast suggests there may be little play to come in the next two days, although we’ve fared much better than Bristol and the Oval with no play at all, and Essex 27 overs. Bristol seems unlucky since both Taunton and Worcester have managed more than 100 overs.

PS If you read above that I posted this at 10.17 that’s because this system does not adjust its clocks. It was 11.17

PPS Updating at 2pm, the weather is worse than forecast in Hampshire and it seems unlikely that there will be much more play today. As things stand only three matches have had fewer overs in rain-affected draws since Hampshire moved to the Rose Bowl in 2001 (you can find the full list below – “Rainy Days and Fun Days” 22 April). Mind you it’s looking as though the Oval and Bristol may see complete abandonments and that’s never happened at West End.

One of the delights of being Hampshire’s (Hon) Archivist is that treasures come my way, for safe-keeping and handing on to my successors. These treasures include the autographs of Hampshire cricketers. When I watched Hampshire as a boy I collected autographs and fortunately kept some, but in recent years I’ve been building our collection. I made a brief visit to the Ageas Bowl yesterday evening (my wife is still hobbling on crutches like an injured bowler) and Tim Tremlett passed to me (and therefore to all of us) an old autograph book, found by a friend at Tim’s golf club. It’s from the 1920s and is mostly signed by friends of the owner but there is also the signature of Joe Beckett the English Heavyweight Boxing Champion in August 1922 and from the same month this collection of Hampshire’s side that beat Worcestershire at the county ground. Interestingly nine of the players also played in the famous match v Warwickshire two months earlier (15 all out and won). This side: Brown, Newman, Lawrie, Tennyson, Mead, Bowell, Kennedy, Altham, Day, Livsey and Boyes. Altham and Lawrie were amateurs, schooled respectively at Repton and Eton, Altham – youth coach and cricket historian –  had played for Oxford University before the war and Lawrie had won his first ‘blue’ in 1922. Those two did not play against Warwickshire (McIntyre and Shirley instead). There are also the signatures of three Worcestershire players, Shorting, Preece and Higgins (who scored 118). It’s difficult to display these things at the ground but the Blog is a bonus.

I’m sorry to have missed today but it’s good to see the regulations that allowed time to be made up – in the event they lost 32 overs which is exactly two hours of play. It was splendid too to see Liam Dawson taking wickets in the last hour. He took 3-8 v Loughborough Uni but has never taken 3 wickets in a Championship innings previously, so this will be a Championship best when the innings concludes – one more wicket and it’s a BB*

Sean Terry is making his Championship debut but not first-class – the University match was first-class. He is the first ‘son of’ a Hampshire player since Chris Tremlett and before that Bob Herman (son of ‘Lofty’). In 1960 CA Fry played for the county as had both his father S Fry and illustrious grandfather CB Fry. Damian D’Oliveira recently suggested that his family were the first to have three generations in one county side but they’re not. I’m not sure, but perhaps Hampshire are.

Other Hampshire Fathers & Sons:

E and EIM Barrett, A Bowell and N Bowell, S and CP Brutton, EL and EMC Ede, AH and AJ Evans, CR and JH Gunner, AJL and AEL Hill

*PS Dawson took two more wickets and so his first ‘five-for’. Well done Liam

… don’t have the best starts. I was thinking of Jimmy Adams who is struggling with the bat and began with a defeat against Gloucestershire.

In First-Class cricket at least I would nominate Richard Gilliat and Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie as Hampshire’s finest captains. I-M took Hampshire to second for the first time in 1958 (above) his first season in charge and then the title three years later, while Gilliat, appointed in 1971, led Hampshire to first in 1973, a monstrously unfairly drenched second in 1974 and third in 1975.

The wet parallels extend to 1958 which was one of the wettest – as this one threatens to be. Hampshire started at Bradford and after two wet days lost a single innings match after a generous declaration. They then lost at Trent Bridge and Old Trafford while the captain scored 36, 0, 19, 37 and 3. After this it was back to Portsmouth, victory over Worcestershire and an assault on Surrey’s hold (their final year of seven consecutive titles).

Gilliat replaced Marshall in 1971 and like Adams enjoyed a comfortable start with a win over a University side (Oxford) after which he made 45 and 0 as Northants beat Hampshire. They drew the next two matches before revenge over Northants. So, like Adams, both of our two finest captains lost their first county match but neither could claim victory in the second. Let’s hope it’s just the start for Jimmy.