Hampshire Cricket History

Gone (Almost)

Happy New Year Bloggers

I live less than half-a-mile from the old US Ground where Hampshire played for more than 100 years although I guess you’d have to be 40 (+) now to have any strong memories of the ground they left in 2000. I see it probably four or five times every week and have been noticing changes.

The b/w photo (Susanne Marlow) is from 1996 and the building behind the marquee, far right, is the Nuffield, built post-war as a club with overnight accommodation for Naval Officers who would sit out on the balcony and watch the play. Later it was bought by the Polytechnic (University) and in 1988 I had the odd experience of being (successfully) interviewed on the ground floor while looking past the panel to the ground where I had once seen ‘Shack’ running in to win the title. Some years after that, the Faculty moved out and the medical staff moved in, after which my GP was housed there.

That’s its history – but I took the colour photo just before Christmas looking from the location of the Nuffield Building towards the pavilion and main stands. As you can see, it’s now nothing but a hole, a plan and a bunch of memories. But there is still a cricket square and summer’s coming.

After spending the previous week in Bournemouth, Hampshire were on the road again with three fixtures in three different competitions. On Wednesday 12 June they travelled to Taunton for an exciting but ultimately frustrating quarter-final which saw the emergence of one of the great figures of English cricket. This was the eleventh season of limited-overs knock-out cricket. Hampshire were still to progress to a Final and early that morning success again appeared elusive as Somerset’s seamers (and a run out) took the first four wickets on the same score of 22 (Richards b Botham 13). From that low point, three men of Hampshire, Jesty (79), Sainsbury (40) and Lewis (25) steered them past 150 with just five down but then the last five went for 25, leaving Somerset with a 55-over target of 183 (Moseley 3-28).

Hampshire’s pace and seam attack then worked steadily through the Somerset side: 37-3; 89-5 with three wickets on 113 by which time Ian Botham was at the crease with Somerset needing 70 and just two wickets and 15 overs remaining. Andy Roberts who finished with 2-26 from his ten overs knocked over the bare-headed Botham who picked himself up, spat out a tooth of two and proceeded to attack. He added 63 with Moseley who went lbw to Roberts with just seven needed but Botham (45*) saw them home and a new hero was born. Jesty added 4-28 to his innings, the only half-century in the match, but Botham snatched away the Match award.

Hampshire had two free days before they met Surrey over three days at the Oval and after losing their illustrious openers with just nine scored, Gilliat (92) and Turner (67) rescued Hampshire who declared on 303-8 and Herman struck before the close (Surrey 20-1).

On the following (Sun)day they travelled down to Canterbury where a crowd of 10,000 saw the home side win by four wickets. Six of Hampshire’s top seven reached double figures but none went beyond Richards’ 33, so Kent pursued a target of 186 (Underwood 4-41). Kent’s opener Johnson equalled Richards’ score but his partner Luckhurst made 50 and despite Roberts’ remarkable return of 8-1-8-3, Kent won with nine balls to spare.

Surrey resumed on Monday morning as Herman (5-58) and Roberts (3-31) took regular wickets and despite a last wicket partnership of 39 Hampshire took a first innings lead of 121. They then struggled in turn, closing on 56-3 and losing their last four wickets for 19 they set Surrey a target of 241 in around 60 overs. The home side too found scoring hard, despite a half century from Edrich and a disappointing week for Hampshire ended with Surrey batting for a draw on 179-6 (Roberts 3-20).

Roberts strikes, Botham down.

I’ve had a couple of pre-Christmas days in Canterbury, staying in the Lodge inside the Cathedral grounds which as you can see from my second photo (the view from our window) is rather delightful. I didn’t anticipate much Hampshire cricket while there but along one street there was a department store window advertising Kent cricket with a large photo of a match. As I stopped briefly, my wife Lou asked “who’s playing” to which I replied Kent for sure, then spotted Sir Alastair at first slip, so playing Essex, and then realised that with the gloves, next to him was Adam Wheater. A ‘Hampshire’ keeper in a shop window in Kent? Must be a record!

Merry Christmas Bloggers.

Interesting address sent from Rod Bransgrove to Members on his last week as the Chairman of Cricket.

He asks “I wonder if any of us, in 2000, could have predicted the advent of Twenty20 in 2003, let alone the Hundred nearly 20 years later!” I am not sure (in the spirit of WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman) whether this is being presented as a wholly “Good Thing”.

Also, he mentions just one player from the 132 who have made their Hampshire first-class debut in the 21st Century. Are we sure that at Hampshire he was ‘simply the best’?

Hampshire spent their playing days this week at Bournemouth. On Wednesday 5 June they began a Championship match against Sussex and while my headline tells you that as usual three days were scheduled for the game, in fact the Bournemouth supporters had to seek alternative entertainment on Friday after Hampshire completed another a two-day innings victory.

On the first day, Gilliat won the toss and chose to bat. Hampshire made steady progress initially but Richards (32), Greenidge (14), Turner (24) and Jesty (35) all got in and got out before the captain and his senior pro Peter Sainsbury added 73. Gilliat went at 210-5 and Taylor shortly after at which point Nigel Cowley making his first-class debut joined Sainsbury and the pair added 59 before Cowley was bowled by Spencer for a very promising 36. Sainsbury held firm for 81* but the Sussex spinners Joshi & Waller polished off the tail, the last three men falling for 2 runs.

Hampshire’s total of 306 looked satisfactory until by the close their bowlers made it far more significant as two wickets each for the opening pair Roberts and Herman left the visitors 35-4. On the next morning Graves (18) and Faber added 31 but that was it – Sussex were all out for 86 (Herman 6-37) and followed on 220 behind.

Their second innings started exactly as the first had at 31-3 with Roberts (5-41) and Herman (3-26) working their way through the innings. Five Sussex men reached 20 but only Faber (33) got to 30 and a couple of late wickets for Sainsbury finished things.

After a break of two days, Hampshire met Lancashire in a Sunday League game at Bournemouth and made it three wins from four after posting 160-9 in the slightly reduced 39 overs. It was a total built almost entirely around a fifth wicket stand between Jesty (62) and Sainsbury (39) as only Greenidge with 14 also reached double figures. Lancashire’s batters fared even worse and only a ninth wicket stand of 22 took them to an all out score of 77 (36 overs) with the wickets shared by the five Hampshire bowlers.

Enjoyed a fun Christmas Lunch in the Ageas Suite this afternoon with around 150 members and lots of the full-time staff. Rather delightfully some of the Vipers were there serving the lunch and I did a Q&A with 50 Not Out Tim Tremlett..

In 2014, Ken Maxted, Roger Hart, Jeff Levick and I who had been commentating on Hospital Radio next door to Kevan James’ ball-by-ball on the BBC started working as volunteers on Kevan’s broadcasts.

I completed ten years in 2023 but I am the only one of those ‘pioneers’ left now and Hospital Broadcasting did not survive Lockdown. In place of Ken, Roger and Jeff, BBC South now has a group of younger, more ‘diverse’ commentators, starting with Emily Windsor and Melissa Storey and more recently Stanley Marissa and others. Stanley, a black cricketer originally from Zimbabwe is like Emily and Melissa still playing cricket which means they are up-to-date in a way I’m not – and they play a higher standard of cricket than I ever did – and they are certainly more interested in the shortest forms of the game than I am. I’ve commentated with all three of them and they are fine and because they are young they are learning a lot.

Their selection came to mind this week while reading Geoff Boycott’s typically polemical take in the Daily Telegraph calling TMS a “shadow” of a once “great, iconic programme” which he blamed in his first sentence on the programme being “so politically correct”. He went on to criticise more generally the BBC’s “cushy numbers and guaranteed income” preferring a free-market option over the BBC’s income from government money and “forced subscription from us, the public”.

Well as a member of the public I don’t mind that “forced subscription” for a whole bunch of reasons – and if you’re wondering no, I’m not paid for my commentary work, any more than I was paid back in the 1990s for my music show on Radio Solent. But what about the ‘political correctness’ point? It’s quite obvious that the young commentators who have gradually replaced we Hospital radio guys are women or black or disabled and where I think the BBC gets itself confused is pursuing that deliberate approach only on the edges. If you consider the regular, salaried sports people on BBC South, they are all white men of a certain age (Lewis Coombes, Adam Blackmore, Andy Moon, Kevan James etc) so while I support the diversification of commentators and presenters across the media nobody should be fooled about the ‘low base’ from which this is starting.

In the final analysis of course the key issue is whether the commentators are any good – but it’s not a simple matter to learn how to translate cricketing (or any other) knowledge into media expertise, whether on radio, TV, podcasts etc. It has to be learned and is perhaps harder with fewer role models; after all when I started, I could conjure memories of hours listening to Arlott and his mates, while if anyone doubts that all you need to be a good commentator is cricketing knowledge, think of Fred Trueman, who frequently told us he had no idea what was happening.

So it was interesting later in the article to read Boycott saying that listeners like “a bit of story telling, about the tours you played on, your past experiences” and “want information and knowledge not platitudes”. It’s hard to argue with that last point (what’s the score?) but he pursued his pet theory regretting the change at the BBC that had “moved people out to widen the diversity of the commentary team to be more politically correct.” He praised “brilliant” Jonathan Agnew who played county cricket and a few Tests but apart from Arlott the article was accompanied by a photo of the commentary team from those “Iconic” days. Trevor Bailey, a pretty useful Test cricketer, was there, but alongside Brian Johnston, Don Mosey, Henry Bloefeld and Christopher Martin-Jenkins – not a lot of Test tours among that lot then. The second photo showed “the present-day team” of Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan, Alex Hartley and Glenn McGrath – four international cricketers. Sometimes a photo – or two – really is worth a thousand words.

This was a relatively quiet week with no Championship matches

On the first day of June, a Saturday, Hampshire completed their B&H Zonal matches, beating Glamorgan at Southampton and thereby qualifying for the Quarter-Finals. Andy Roberts struck early, dismissing both openers and Tony Lewis in single figures (33-3) after which Majid Khan did his best to resist, hitting 12 boundaries in his 83. Otherwise only Solanky passed 20 and Glamorgan were all out in the final over for 194 (Roberts 4-26).

In reply, Greenidge went for 10 but Richards (67), Gilliat (66*) and Jesty (26*) took Hampshire to a seven-wicket victory in the 42nd over. Hampshire had won all four of their Zonal matches but found themselves drawn away at Taunton in the Quarter-Final, despite an earlier victory over Somerset.

On the following overcast day, Hampshire made the short trip to Hove where Richards went early but then Greenidge (102) and Turner (42) added 109 in 17 overs. The middle order collapsed with Tony Greig taking 4-18 in seven overs but Greenidge who hit two sixes and Taylor with 27 helped them to 190-9 in 39 overs. Roberts then destroyed the Sussex batting with 5-13 and good support from the other Hampshire bowlers saw Sussex dismissed for 92 in the 29th over. It was Hampshire’s second win in their first three Sunday League matches. Three days later they would meet the same opponents in their next Championship match.

Posted something about possibility of Turner playing – but he’s not.