Hampshire Cricket History

I was asked earlier about worse starts – I’m not sure I’ll check everything but I guessed 1980 since it’s the only time we have finished bottom of the table in the past 119 years (2003 might be a bit dodgy too)

Sure enough in 1980 we started with Drawn; Lost; Lost; Lost so that was worse than this year. In 22 matches we won just one game, in late August when Malcolm Marshall returned from the West Indies’ tour. Chris Smith averaged 30.58, easily the best batter. Keith Stevenson with 48 wickets at 31.12 was the only bowler to reach 40 wickets.

Actually two

Pope 2 & 6 catches = 8 

A record in an innings and a match v Hampshire

A Pompey bloke showing off about his team (after all they only won the Third Division) and it’s not a photo simply about football – it’s a picture about sporting passion for sure but also (equally?) about local pride. Imagine if Hampshire sorted themselves out and won the treble this year – would that be celebrated similarly somewhere down in West End?

I was chatting to some cricket people recently about County identities. Some said they did identify with their county beyond cricket but in every case they were people who lived in rural areas, villages or small towns. Sometimes perhaps ex-pats are more fervently loyal than locals but – far beyond sporting events – I feel far more Pompey than Hampshire and I will feel even more so at the next major event on Southsea seafront, the 80th anniversary of D-Day in about six weeks time, when my home city will once again (for the final time?) become a focus of attention around the world, before the events move to France.

So why Hampshire? When I was a kid and people wrote far more letters than today, most arriving at our house would finish the address with Portsmouth, Hants. Now most (all?) finish Portsmouth PO … (etc). Sometimes articles in the local press about Fratton Park name it only by its PO postcode. Is it a Hampshire club? Hampshire once had a half-decent rugby union side that often played at the US Ground, but now?

In my teaching days I did at one time work for Hampshire County Council but a good while ago so the US Ground is the other key element in my identification with Hampshire because for 41 years I watched Hampshire County Cricket Club play there. But now the organisation that runs first-class (etc.) cricket from Eastleigh is no longer strictly a County nor a Club entity, it’s a business that trades in a variety of things. That’s a reality, I’m not complaining, merely describing the way we are in contrast to the way we were. But maybe it’s one less reason to attach much importance to county identities (although try telling Yorkshire). And maybe for a few weeks each year, that makes it easier to sell the idea of Southern Brave as an identity, although I’m wondering what will happen to all those Southern Vipers shirts in 2025?

I’m just back in Sunny Southsea after 24 hours in London where the weather was utterly awful, freezing cold and wet. Here of course it is like a summer’s afternoon.

I learn that play will resume at 4.30 with 32 overs. Good for them for providing entertainment but how do they work that out? A Championship day is divided into three two-hour sessions: 11-1pm; 1.40-3.40pm and 4-6pm (plus overtime when necessary). In the six hours they are expected to bowl 96 overs at 16 per hour, so from 4-6pm there should be 32 (16 x 2) overs. But despite losing 30 minutes of that session, it’s still 32 overs.

PS I have asked around and the other DA has found the answer (well done!). They have added on overs carried from previous days when the weather intervened. Quite right but just a shame it helps Surrey!

The result of a number of enquiries this morning reveals (from Andrew Sansom) that

Kyle Abbott (600 at 21.40) is second on average to Mo Abbas (679 at 20.83) amongst all current seamers who have 600+ wickets.

It’s about time that they started improving those averages!

There are some current spinners who have better averages with 600+ wickets. Chris Rushworth (660 @ 22.56) is 3^rd amongst seamers.

You know how your favourite packet of biscuits costs the same today but there are fewer biscuits or maybe they’re a bit smaller?

I’ve been watching and listening today while reading various articles in the Cricket Statistician’s Archives

In 1987 one of our finest cricket historians, Peter Wynne-Thomas did an analysis of over rates in Nottinghamshire’s Championship matches in 1933. He concluded that it was somewhere around 21+ overs per hour in fixed six-hour days

He compared it with the 1987 season when the average was around 18+ or three overs fewer per hour.

Today, at the Oval – hardly a day of fielders chasing leather – the equivalent fixed day from 11-6pm and including two overs for change of innings has seen 84 overs – still 12 to go – which is an average of 13.8 overs per hour.

We’re being swindled! More biscuits!

As in not many runs

As far as first innings batting is concerned we have now completed the first quarter of the 2024 season and we have four batting points

Sorry – felt obliged to write something and could not think of anything else.

The 2nd XI declared on 400-9 and have three Middlesex wickets although the opening pair of Turner & Jack failed to strike (and one was a run out).

Southern Vipers are playing at Wormsley in what I assume is their last season before a team called Hampshire appears. There is of course (and historically) already a women’s team called Hampshire but whether their records and the 2025 variety should be amalgamated is an interesting question. The previous/current side is an amateur one and not playing top level – in other words a bit like Hampshire’s men in their second-class years (on-and-off) between 1864-1894.

For example Sir Francis (FE) Lacey played first-class matches for Hampshire and other sides although not all of his first-class county matches were in the County Championship. But he also played second-class county matches and in one of those for Hampshire v Lincolnshire at Southampton in May 1887 he scored 323* in 210 minutes with four x 6s and 37 x 4s. Hampshire 558 all out won by an innings & 342 runs but none of that features in our records other than Lacey’s innings being the highest-ever for Hampshire in any form of cricket.

Lacey incidentally became Secretary of MCC and was the first man to be knighted for services to cricket.

So Bad?

Hampshire have been no more than OK most of the time and sometimes less than that – even the big stand v Warwicks went so slowly that we managed just one batting point during a collapse.

The pitches are flat and the matches are pretty dull, making it difficult to figure whether our ageing attack is wearing out or whether there is no balance between BAT and ball

We are now beyond 20% of the Championship season and after a very fine attendance on a delightful first day v Lancashire the weather has been freezing and people have been voting with their feet – I reckon there were maybe 83 people in yesterday.

Next up Surrey at the Oval, always a fun fixture and with another lousy forecast.

When does the Hundred start?

Very carefully you can see the last four people sitting outside during the tea interval waiting for ???

Taken from the Gantry where the three of us are very cold!