Hampshire Cricket History

I had an hour to spare in town today, so I went to the Library to check out this and that on the Portsmouth Evening News Archive and came across these bits & pieces:

August 1958: Portsmouth Cricket Wicket and the two captains JJ Warr & Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie meet the Lord Mayor Alfred Blake. Below is the advert for Shack’s benefit night at Southsea’s Savoy Ballroom (seafront) with the players from the two teams and a couple of ‘media personalities’:

And here’s a story about the long-serving Portsmouth groundsman who built their famous heavy (heaviest?) roller:

Many thanks to Jeremy for spotting this online (link in Comments on previous post)

Here are the headlines (incidentally ‘to card’ is not a verb; try scheduled, planned, arranged etc, still it is the Daily Wail)

• The Hundred is likely to disrupt the 2020 County Championship season 
• Final round of County Championship fixtures is carded for September 27-30
• The new 100-ball tournament is provisionally listed from July 17 to August 16
• Seven rounds of the county season are scheduled to be completed by May 25 with a further four rounds held in the final 23 days of September

Surrey have also now confirmed the Kolpak signing of Hashim Amla. I suggested to Colin they are currently chasing Harry, Megan, Adele, Corbyn and Hue Edwards. hang around – it might be you next.

PS I meant to add that in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “He would say that wouldn’t he?”

Colin – our London/Essex link – reports that the Evening Standard has confirmed that Reece Topley has signed for Surrey. He’ll send the scan tomorrow (cheers).

Being a sports lover. The uncertainty is one of the main things that keeps us interested and sometimes the uncertainty can be exhilarating (England rugby today) and sometimes the opposite. From Pompey I send my entirely genuine commiserations to Saints fans; I watched some of that on TV and it really was appalling, but it’s not been great anywhere in Hampshire today. Pompey 2-0 up with 20 minutes to go, conceded an equaliser in ‘injury time’, Aldershot conceded the winner at the same time, while Eastleigh shared points with Woking when both teams scored after 90 minutes. Still at least the weather was lovely today!!

It had me thinking about the most disappointing Hampshire game I saw and whether that was also the worst performance. I wonder what you think? I identified two such games. The most disappointing – unbeatable I think – was the match v Yorkshire at Bournemouth at the end of the 1974 season. I was there on the first day, although of course in one sense it wasn’t a match I saw, because there was not a ball bowled and we lost the Championship. I’ll never get over that.

The worst? Not that one, since we did nothing wrong. I think, in context it was perhaps our Lord’s Final of 2007 when we were pretty well rubbish throughout, stuffed by Durham and few of us even saw the conclusion because the rain took it to a second day. (Chasing 313 to win we were 17-3 and never recovered, losing by 125 runs).

And to cheer us up, the best? Well I heard about 1961 v Derbyshire on the radio and recall being very thrilled, but I think the best performance I saw, again in context, was our defeat of Northants in two days at Southampton in 1973 which effectively clinched the title. Our bowlers were terrific and Richards magical. (The innings defeat of Worcs the following year might have been better, but …)

I’ve just received a review copy of Michael Bates’ book – I’ll report further but it’s looking promising

Also, good news about Lewis McManus – I wonder will he be first choice, with Tom Alsop batting?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/50158094

And here’s Broadhalfpenny Down, last Saturday – nice sky huh?

Check this – very nice!

https://kelvinhudson02.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/irish-cricket-project-pt-1/?fbclid=IwAR0gHfEouT8kS8I-OxoeXApzEhek3CvEgLB2YlX9f43lwopuzmoaIw0hbC0

SOUTHERN BRAVE 15-man squad: Jofra Archer, Andre Russell, David Warner, Liam Dawson, James Vince, Shadab Khan, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Ross Whiteley, Delray Rawlins, Ollie Pope, George Garton, Alex Davies, Max Waller, Craig Overton.

Coach: Mahela Jayawardene.

So, ‘we’ (I use the term loosely) have Vince & Dawson. Didn’t Mark Nicholas say something about identifying with local players? Did he mean Benny Howell, Danny Briggs, Chris Wood and Adam Hose (Adam Hose?) who have gone elsewhere – incidentally Trent Rockets are the only team without a Hampshire connection.

When London come to the Bowl do ‘we’ boo Kyle & Mason and cheer the lovely David Warner? Clarification needed please.

I think (and hope) I’m correct in reporting that tomorrow is the wedding day of our captain and his lovely lady. If so, let’s wish them every happiness and a long and happy life together.

PS: Many thanks to ‘Bloggy’ for this photo of the lovely couple:

A few years ago, a pal of mine found a collection of cricket cartoons that were published in Punch between the wars. He gave them to me and I’ve just started to sort them out. Some are completely delightful – and there were many of them.

Here are a couple. The one showing the hapless batsman is the oldest – it will reach its century next summer (1920). The other is just a few years more recent, and is remarkably prescient – although these days, the adverts on the sightscreens are supposed to be behind the batsman!

If you can’t make out the texts they are:

1. Informative fielder (to batsman who seems inclined to weigh the situation) “That’s Out George”.
2. The Advertising Expert’s Dream

I’ve been saving this for wet weather and a quiet day. From Sky at the end of the season, in the COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP :

LEADING RUN-SCORERS since 2007 (Somerset on top)

M Trescothick 13,633 @47.50

J Hildreth 12,562 @ 41.18

C Nash 11,511 @37.86

D Mitchell 11,292 @ 37.39

S Davies 10,417 @ 37.60

W Madsen 10,412 @ 39.89

J Adams 10,376 @38.14

MOST WICKETS since 2017 (three seasons, Essex on top):

S Harmer 209 @ 20.23

J Porter 181 @ 21.44

K Abbott 179 @ 18.67

C Rushworth 176 @ 20.96

(Ollie Robinson is seventh with 156 @18.13)