Hampshire Cricket History

I’ve been watching the live streams while doing other things (sound off) – I suspect there will be quite a few doing the same tonight.

If you’re interested in the history of this fixture – not awful for us despite ‘Fortress Chelmsford’ – check out:

https://www.ageasbowl.com/cricket/news/dave-allen-20-years-of-essex-away/

Let’s hope for a better result!

I thought I’d take your mind off last night. Everything looked pretty desolate on the Live Stream.

On Saturday 30 July 1966, most of the nation was enjoying seeing Her Majesty present the World Cup to Bobby Moore. Meanwhile at Southampton, Hampshire were in the field, Derbyshire having elected to bat. It was one of those days that infuriated the powers-that-be as the visitors crawled to 157 all out in the 89th over, after which Hampshire lost Marshall & Reed, closing on 43-2. On the Monday they too batted slowly ending with a lead of one run in 85.4 overs. It’s perhaps not surprising that the match was drawn after Derbyshire batted even more slowly second time around – 142 all out in 91.5 overs.

World Cup day was however a triumph for Alan Castell who had converted from promising leg-spinner (are you watching Mason?) to a seamer and on that super day for the former Essex cricketer G Hurst, returned figures of 27-5-49-6.

And the weather

10-2? Our lowest T20 v Somerset is 91 in 2017.

41-4 and looking a bit damp now – my roses could do with a drop

There we are then – Len Barry time. One of my favourite blue-eyed soul records (always looking on the bright side huh? But my roses got not a drop)

The same 14 man squad has been named for tonight so there might be changes but probably not. The Comments section is now open for business today but one extra Jubilee thought for today.

We are this week marking the 70th anniversary of the day that Princess Elizabeth became the Queen – with the formal Coronation to follow almost 18 months later. Her father died on 6 February 1952 and without endless research the only Hampshire-related event I can find for 6 February comes courtesy of Alan Edwards’ book Hampshire Cricket on this Day but it takes us back to 1905 and one of our first Championship captains and England cricketers ‘Teddy’ Wynyard who scored a century for Lord Brackley’s XI v the West Indies at Kensington Oval, Barbados.

PS: Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon (4.30 in Pompey) – Red Roses for the official Hampshire County crest, White Rose for Hampshire County Cricket and Pink? Just mix the two …

Here’s more about that visit by Her Majesty which was part of The Pageant of Guildford, staged to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the granting of the city’s first charter.

The Queen was due on the second afternoon which we can see was sunny but Hampshire, on the back of two wins and a draw, won the toss in the heavy atmosphere of Wednesday 26 June 1957 and chose to bat. Ingleby-Mackenzie was increasingly in charge before his first full-time season as captain and he would have regretted that decision when Hampshire were all out in the 26th over for 66. Barnard with 13 and Rayment 12 were the only men to reach double figures, while Peter Loader (7-36) and Alec Bedser (3-26) bowled unchanged. Through the rest of the day Surrey posted 247-4 with 82 from Tom Clark, Peter May made 56 and Ken Barrington was 40* with one wicket each for Sainsbury, Gray, Burden and Heath.

At the start of the second day the obvious thought would be that Surrey would bat on and compile a huge lead but they didn’t bother, they declared at the overnight score, Hampshire batted again and were all out for 108 in the 53rd over with the captain top-scoring (35), Loader adding 4-34 to his first innings and Jim Laker taking 5-46.

The problem was that the game was over before Her Majesty arrived, Surrey having lost just four wickets in winning by an innings and 73 runs. They were Champions again as Hampshire finished 13th – in 1958 the sides would finish first and second. When Her Majesty arrived, Desmond Eagar donned his whites (below) and introduced his side.

We are celebrating the Queen’s 70 years of ‘service’ this week which began on 6 February 1952 with the death of her father – the 70th anniversary of her coronation will be 2 June next year but it’s handy that the celebrations are in June this year because 6 February 1952 was not a very exciting day in the history of Hampshire County Cricket Club, whereas over 31 May and 1 & 2 June 1953 we were down in Bristol for a Championship game.

Desmond Eagar won the toss, we chose to bat and Neville Rogers and Jimmy Gray went past 50 for the first wicket before three quick wickets for spinners ‘Sam’ Cook (2) and ‘Bomber’ Wells reduced us to 61-3. That brought together Cliff Walker who had come down to Hampshire from Yorkshire and Alan Rayment who had played for Middlesex 2s before also moving south. The pair posted their highest scores in adding 246 before Rayment went for 126 while Walker was still there at the close and went on to 150* in a Hampshire total of 375 (151 overs) early the next morning.

To force a win, Hampshire would need quick wickets after batting on into day two and after ‘Shack’ struck early they struggled to 138-5 but the Gloucs captain Jack Crapp went to a century and found good support from ‘keeper Arthur Wilson (94) and pace bowler George Lambert (62*) and they closed on 323-6 which meant the final day would be a battle for first innings points.

The first two days had been extended to allow a late start on day three, enabling players and spectators to watch (or listen to) the Coronation broadcast and when play began at 2pm it was Gloucestershire who took the points finishing on 393 in 161.3 overs – a lead of 18. The wickets were shared around with Jimmy Gray taking 3-46 which he followed with 25* as Hampshire played out time at 62-2 – both unusually falling to Tom Graveney (2-16) who bowled in tandem with Arthur Milton; Neville Rogers retired hurt with a damaged thumb which would keep him out for a few weeks. At the season’s end Hampshire had dropped two places to 14th while Gloucestershire were equal with Derbyshire in 6th place. Surrey won the second of seven consecutive titles.

Below, a few years later (of which more tomorrow) HM the Queen meets the Hampshire side at Guildford and shakes hands with Alan Rayment who had his own reasons for remembering her Coronation.

I thought over the next week or so I might offer some snippets of Hampshire’s history against key dates in Her Majesty’s 70 years. I was chatting to a younger friend about the Jubilee recently and it led me to discover that I’m one of around 15% of the UK population born before she succeeded her father in 1952.

When it comes to making sense of today’s county and England cricket, being part of that 15% seems to me increasingly significant. My first memory of England on TV was against New Zealand in 1958, I first saw county cricket in 1959, I first went regularly (Portsmouth) in 1960, and in 1961 I was a junior member and travelled to Southampton for the first time (v Kent). By then I was playing cricket for the first time in a school XI wearing full whites – and we never played a limited-overs format, and only ever in ‘friendlies’ (no competitions, no medals).

On Thursday 22 August 1963 I went to my first Test Match, England v West Indies at the Oval where I saw ‘Shack’ make a magnificent 0* from four balls. I do remember the black & white screening of the first Gillette Cup Final a few weeks later although Hampshire had lost their first ever game, midweek in May at Bournemouth, and I hardly noticed. The Final was not exactly a thriller; scheduled for 65 overs per side, Sussex were all out for 168 after two balls of the 60th over and beat Worcestershire 154 all out (63.2 overs). Overall then 322 runs and 20 wickets in 124 overs.

It did not seem slow of course – what did we know? Life continued much the same for my first ten years of watching county cricket and there was just one more Test Match day at Trent Bridge v South Africa in 1965 when Graeme Pollock hit his famous 125 from 145 balls – that was sheer luck, I was on holiday. Playing at school continued much the same and I don’t think I saw either of the two Pompey Gillette Cup matches in the 1960s because I was playing.

Then, after ten formative years of Championship and Test cricket, the Sunday League appeared and while I quite enjoyed it, from the start it felt a bit short, rushed. There was no ‘one day’ international cricket yet, and I didn’t play limited-overs league cricket until 1976, after I finished my student cricket days, so for me first-class county and Test cricket (in whites) was the natural order of things – we just played a single day, single innings version of that.

As a consequence, I’ve never quite ‘progressed’ to the full magic of the short stuff in fancy dress and I doubt I ever will, although I’ve enjoyed our 40/50/55/60-over Lord’s Cup Final triumphs. Those of us who were born in the days of the old King, grew up with a game that is greatly changed and if you came to cricket, watching and/or playing, after say 1970, the ‘natural order’ probably feels very different (?)

Would you change anything on Monday? Nick Gubbins will be back from the tourist game

He did not however play in any T20 matches last year. Before joining Hampshire his T20 average was just 14.71 with one fifty in 39 matches for Middlesex (SR: 117.31).

If you’re going, may the sun shine on you and I hope you have fun.

For each of the T20 games I have written up a brief history against those opponents, so currently, matches v Middlesex at home. You can find it on the club’s website:

https://www.ageasbowl.com/cricket/news/dave-allen-20-years-of-middlesex-at-the-ageas-bowl/

PS The later post about membership/tickets/entry was only for my information so many thanks to you all but I’ve removed it so that we can focus on tonight’s game. Add any comments you wish.

I think you followed my ‘disappointment’ about the 2nd XI stats (not the scorecards) in this year’s Handbook. I’ve made a couple of suggestions for dealing with those to the powers that be but have yet to get a response. I’ve been helped enormously in getting the correct versions by Don Starr and he has been chatting with Tigger so I am delighted to share with you all this message from Tigger:

“Don Starr asked me if it was possible to add the 2nd XI stats for 2022 to my website.

I have now done it. The 2nd XI Championship and 2nd XI T20 are available from the EXTERNAL LINKS** drop down (items 6 & 7). The 2 T20 matches played yesterday are not yet available on CricketArchive but I’ll add these as soon as they are available”.

**Green Box, top left hand corner

Brilliant!! Many thanks.