Hampshire Cricket History

There was a full house at the AGM and Forum last night although a technical hitch meant the latter had to be recorded and can be heard on Radio Solent this evening. There was quite a lot of discussion about the future of English cricket, none of it encouraging for those of us who love the county championship.

We were told that Jackson Bird is coming on an open-ended contract and this morning the Australian 17 to tour England was announced, with no Bird – so if things go well he could stay all season.

Surrey were 169-3 overnight (one each for Tomlinson, Wood and Berg) but the weather did for today, so no batting practice for the Hampshire players. There’s a more complete report of yesterday on the club’s website

I was up in the middle of the night and while I did doze occasionally, watched pretty well the whole of today’s Final. The 100 run partnership gave New Zealand brief hope but in reality this was very one-sided. When it was over I read a piece by Andrew Strauss (Sunday Times) suggesting that the World Cup had been captivating and that Test cricket must learn from it.

I wonder whether that’s true. By common consent the best eight sides reached the quarter-finals but in the seven matches it took to find the winners, only one was a close contest. The others were all one-sided with the result clear from some way out. That was true for the most part in the qualifying rounds too. I wonder for how long fans will love a format dominated for the most part by batsmen and with few thrilling finishes?

In fact, it’s not just Test cricket. The conclusion to last season’s second division in the Championship at Cardiff and Chelmsford had far more twists and turns than the World Cup offered.

It seems that Hampshire v Surrey ended with the visitors 40-1 (Roy c Wheater b Tomlinson). Not sure whether the forecast is any better tomorrow. I went instead to Hambledon where there was mist around the down but a rather good fire inside and an excellent talk from Stephen Chalke about his new history of the County Championship

Incidentally I shall be at the AGM (etc) on Monday and with Handbooks to sell.

I’ve been reorganising the corner cabinets in the bars, one with Hampshire Cricket books, one with a tribute to Phil Hughes and one about Wynyard including a significant bat, ball and telegram.

Hampshire have a friendly this weekend – on Sunday there is also a Vintage Fair in the ground – not sure what impact that may have on viewing. HOWEVER I’ve just seen a weekend weather forecast which suggests there might be very little play …

(Only kidding)

I never knew him at Hampshire. In 2006, when I published my book Entertain or Perish I asked ‘Dimi’ to get the team that year to sign a copy for me and being a delightful guy he did. At the time, KP was away with England.

Some weeks later on a non-match day, I was taking some copies to the old shop and saw him unloading his car so I took a copy out, explained about the signed copy and asked if he would sign a copy for me. He wasn’t the least bit ‘chatty’ but seemed perfectly nice and as you can see below, he signed across the title page.

And I do mean ‘across’!

I’ve been to Lord’s today where I met up with representatives from the MCC and the counties, all like me, responsible for history, heritage, libraries and museums. It was a really friendly and productive meeting and we are hoping between us to develop a model of ‘best practice’ to inform the work of all the counties. We’ll meet up at from time-to-time at matches over the season and then all together again in September/October at Trent Bridge.

I’m going to type up some notes and I’m very happy to share them and invite comments from members and supporters about what you think matters (and I’ve observed that for me, history begins a moment ago)

I had a bit of a wait on Waterloo Station so visited the new Foyles and found Stephen Chalke’s new book Summer’s Crown, which is a history of the County Championship. I’ve picked my way through some bits and it looks splendid – really good, full of stories, facts, records, pictures etc.

If you read past the Headline story there are some ‘interesting’ comments here by the incoming boss of ECB, Colin Graves:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/32037349

or perhaps All Hail Hampshire?

I’ve been at the ground today – there was a downpour that turned into a hailstorm. First (friendly) game Saturday!

(it’s interesting that the hailstones melt instantly on the square)