Hampshire Cricket History

Peter Siddle bowling in a Beany!

It continues to be an interesting game – very good innings by Abbott and Dawson’s best of the season.

Actually, this one is even better!

Meanwhile here’s Jo, dreaming of Barbados! (no mates Jo?)

That IS the question – it’s “nobler” to get over there, since I’m down to broadcast, but …

Rain ‘in the air’ in Pompey on the edge of what’s threatened, but it might not spread to the Bowl and it isn’t much. In which case will bad light come into play again?

Meanwhile, many thanks to Terry Crump for this alert, which begins:

“If the ECB want to try and expand cricket to “mums and kids” with no knowledge of the game, perhaps it’s best not to start by explaining this match between Hampshire and Essex.

Just 28 overs either side of lunch were possible on the third day before umpires Paul Baldwin and Neil Bainton ended play due to bad light. A delay of two hours had occurred shortly before lunch, despite the light appearing no worse than when there had been cricket taking place”.

The whole piece – worth a read:

http://deepextracover.com/2018/04/bad-light-dominates-third-day-at-ageas/

Needs to put this game out of its misery. Back on briefly just before 3pm – Amla and Adams gone and now they’re off again.

PS There’s a deluge coming tomorrow BUT – is it coming to the Ageas Bowl or is the ground just on the dry edge, with everything to the east getting a soaking? If the latter (since I’m down to commentate) please let it be brighter, because all this hanging around watching nobody playing on a dry ground, in freezing weather, is horrid!

10.58am and the umpires are in the middle in white coats, and ready for play to begin!

New ball’s been taken so quicks are on (12.30) and it’s a bit gloomy

(Four minutes later, they’re off)

83 overs bowled so far.

Meanwhile, I’m a bit thrilled by this. In the Hospital Radio Box I was asked whether Adams & Weatherley is Hampshire’s first Winchester-born opening partnership and I can reveal that at Trent Bridge in 1976 Peter Barrett and Richard Lewis opened!

The forecast for Sunday is not perfect – especially since the umpires have now set the acceptable (and not) light level. In addition, it might rain after tea. As for Monday; build an Ark!

We’ve had 60 overs so far, so assuming there is no play on Monday, we’re on course for one of the shortest rain/light-affected games ever on this ground. In the Championship they have been:

106 overs       July 2012        v Yorkshire

119.1 overs    August 2001 v Warwickshire

126 overs       May 2007        v Lancashire.

136.1 overs    July 2007        v Sussex

A few weeks ago, there was also the shortest-ever first-class game:

83 overs         April 2018       v Cardiff University

This game is almost certainly a competition for bonus points now, but even the quest for those might be incomplete.

PS 8.15am Sunday morning and the sky is as dull as it was yesterday, so I’m not sure they’ll start, unless it brightens up.

It’s not very nice, the lights are on and there are not many here, but they are playing. Weatherley got to 29, edged to slip and was dropped; so he tried again and was caught. James Vince is in, and next door, as I type, up in the ACD I-M stand, is being watched by Ed Smith, ‘Gus’ Fraser etc.

(Saturday Afternoon)

(Headline is for those who remembered Horace Bachelor …)

Chester was the Deputy of course (I guess I could have picked Deputy Dawg)

As part of the work I’m doing for the Captains’ Dinner, I’m trying to compile a list of the significant deputies – not necessarily just vice-captains, but those who took over because the skipper was not around. I might have to check all the scorecards but I’m being lazy to start with.

A good example is 2010. ‘Dimi’ was officially captain but played almost no games. Nic Pothas stood in, and so too Dominic Cork – increasingly the latter, who captained Hampshire to the 2010 T20 trophy.

The dinner focus is post-war and particularly surviving captains (ie since Richard Gilliat). Obvious names, who did not go on to be official captain, include I think Peter Sainsbury, Trevor Jesty, Paul Terry, Shaun Udal, Pothas, & Cork, but might there be others? (Will Kendall?)

(I suspect the classic period for deputies was Tennyson’s later years, when lots of amateurs and professionals took over).

Another triumph for ECB scheduling with four Div One matches, getting 15 overs between them – all at the Ageas Bowl. The forecast I’ve just seen for Monday is dreadful – they were even suggesting the possibility of snow …

Still lots more Championship cricket to come!

PS At least there’s a Championship debut for that rarest of creatures, a pace bowler developed through Hampshire’s age groups/Academy/2nd XI

Shame it’s for Middlesex though.

I’m about halfway through it and enjoying it hugely.