Born On This Day: 27th November

Today we mark the birthday of young Hampshire keeper-batsman Tom Alsop, a player who also shares the occasion with former Hampshire off-spinner, Harry Baldwin.

Tom Alsop, was born in High Wycombe in 1995, and as a product of Hampshire’s impressive youth system, always stood out as a player likely to make the big step up to the senior game.

In April 2014, Alsop was awarded with a two-year development contract after a string of impressive performances with the bat and behind the stumps for the Hampshire Academy and Second XI. That same year he enjoyed a successful spell with the England Under 19s, averaging 52 in eight matches against South Africa Under 19’s across the summer. He then made his first-class debut in Hampshire's penultimate match of the 2014 season against Kent at the The Ageas Bowl.

Alsop continued to impress for Hampshire Second XI and England U19s in the following year, hitting a half-century against Australia U19s in the Youth Test at Chester-le-Street.

During a highly successful 2016, Alsop's talent was showcased in all three formats, averaging 83 in his first four List-A matches for Hampshire and scoring 85 against Somerset in the club's final T20 Blast match of the season. He also showed superb ability in the Specsavers County Championship, scoring his maiden first-class century (117) against Surrey in September and recording first-class fifties in each month of the campaign. His growth was then recognised by the ECB that winter as he earned a spot in the 2017 North v South series.

Despite finding opportunities limited throughout 2017, Alsop enjoyed an impressive 2018 season after filling the role of wicket-keeper batsman on a more regular basis. His strongest performances came in Hampshire's triumphant 50-over campaign where he averaged 50 with the bat, including a magnificent knock of 72 at the top of the order in the competition's final at Lord's.

The left-hander enjoyed another positive season in 2019, one which included a stunning career-best 150 with the bat against Warwickshire in May. Despite a truncated 2020 campaign, Alsop was also an ever-present member of the top-order throughout Hampshire's Bob Willis Trophy and Vitality Blast efforts.

Harry Baldwin, was born in Wokingham in 1860 Harry Baldwin who lived at Winchfield, is generally described as an off-break bowler although he often opened the bowling in Hampshire’s early years in the County Championship. In recent years, Harry has been immortalised by the photograph of him hitching up his trousers at Portsmouth, used on the cover of the ‘Fatty Batter’ book, although he was a much slimmer cricketer in earlier photographs.

He played for Hampshire in a first-class match in May 1877 v Derbyshire, when just 16, but did not return for 10 years, by which time Hampshire were eight years from regaining first-class status. Throughout that period, he enjoyed regular success as the team improved.

Baldwin and his opening partner Tom Soar carried the bowling in Hampshire’s first Championship season, taking 191 of the 260 Championship wickets, with Baldwin enjoying his best season with 102 – it would be six years before Llewellyn became the next Hampshire bowler to reach three figures. In that year, Baldwin and Soar bowled unchanged to take Hampshire to an innings victory v Derbyshire and he took 13-76 in the match v Essex at Southampton, as well as eight wickets when Hampshire managed an astonishing victory in two days v Yorkshire at Sheffield. 

In the next five seasons, he always passed fifty wickets, sometimes significantly more, but after a less successful time in 1901 he did not play over the next two years. This Hampshire side was the weakest in their history however, and he returned in 1904 (age 44) & 1905, taking exactly 100 first-class wickets over those two years.

In 1898, he had been the first Hampshire player to be awarded a benefit, but the first day of his chosen match v Yorkshire was abandoned with not a ball bowled, and the second became the only match in Hampshire’s history to finish in a single day, the visitors winning by an innings.

The day’s takings did not cover the match expenses and the Committee had to help Harry to an eventual benefit of just under £250. Later in that season Baldwin took 15-142 in the match at Hove; still the fourth best in the county’s history, and in that year, he finished eighth in the national averages. From 1907, he spent three years as a first-class umpire. He died in Aldershot in 1935.

Also today: Edward Causton (1919), Walter McBride (1925-1929)