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Hampshire Cricket Historian Dave Allen continues the 'From The Archive' series with a reflection on the introduction of limited-overs cricket into the English game
As Hampshire return to the Royal London One-Day Cup today in an away fixture against Kent Spitfires, Club historian Dave Allen, looks back upon the emergence of the limited overs format into the county cricket system.
Find out how Hampshire started their limited overs campaign into a successful 50-over side, leading to them being crowned Champions in last year's competition.
IT’S A KNOCK-OUT!
As I approach my 70th birthday I am one of a dwindling group of county cricket followers who can recall the days when all we watched was three-day, first-class cricket. That changed of course with the introduction of the first knock-out cup competition in 1963, as English cricket sought to arrest the decline in attendances and perhaps even attract a ‘new’ audience.
If that was the intention, the start was pretty modest. The first task was to reduce the (then) 17 counties to 16, so Lancashire and Leicestershire who had finished in the bottom two places in the Championship in 1962 met in a ‘play-off’ at Old Trafford on the first day of May. Right from the start however the idea of ‘one-day’ cricket was something of a misnomer, since unsurprisingly Manchester in the early spring was a bit soggy, and the game took two days to complete.
Leicestershire’s seamer Rodney Pratt became the first man to take a wicket in a ‘major’ knock out cricket match with Roy Entwhistle dismissed hit wicket, then it was Peter Marner’s turn to record the first century in this format as Lancashire posted 304-9 in their 65 (yes, 65) overs. Three of the bowlers incidentally bowled 15 overs which was then permitted, and while Maurice Hallam replied with three figures, Lancashire were easy winners.
If you were a Leicestershire fan that was it for the season, while Lancashire progressed to the semi-final, offering an indication of greater things to come. On their way, they beat Derbyshire whose campaign had begun on Wednesday 22 May at Bournemouth where they beat Hampshire in a thriller in the first match for those two teams. It is interesting to note that Hampshire did not bother to place this inaugural fixture at their headquarters, but at least they got the match completed in one day with all but three balls of the planned 130 overs bowled.
Hampshire without the injured Derek Shackleton fielded a somewhat strange-looking side. They brought Dennis Baldry back from retirement to bowl seamers with Jimmy Gray, who in turn shared the new ball with ‘Butch’ White. The other Hampshire bowlers were the two slow-left-armers Sainsbury and Wassell, while ten of their side had been among the Champions two years earlier, with the addition of batsman Geoff Keith.
‘Butch’ dismissed Derbyshire’s captain without a run scored and after five overs they were 1-1, but recovered to post a respectable 250-9. For Hampshire, Henry Horton came in at number nine, his place first wicket down having been taken by Mike Barnard who made a terrific effort to win the match with 98 before he was last out at 244. In 1963, Mike was one of a handful of players in lost causes to be awarded a silver medal.
Despite having 65 overs per side, this match was relatively high-scoring for those early days and many totals were a fraction of what we expect today. Overall it took 16 matches for Sussex to emerge as the first victors over Worcestershire at Lord’s on Saturday 7 September, and in those matches, 13 of the completed innings failed to reach 200 while after Old Trafford, only one more innings reached 300, as Sussex scored 314-7 in their first-round match at Tunbridge Wells. Lancashire, after their bright start, managed just 59 all out in their semi-final at Worcester, after which at Lord’s the midlands county dismissed Sussex for 168 in the 61st over, but fell 14 short with 10 balls remaining. Bob Carter was the only bowler in the Final to concede runs at more than three per over, and the Sussex captain Ted Dexter was the first man to hold aloft the sponsored Gillette Cup.
A few ‘overseas’ players played for their adopted counties during this first competition – not least Hampshire’s Roy Marshall – but 21 players in the Final were English county cricketers; the exception, Worcestershire’s opening batsman Ron Headley, son of the West Indies hero George.
No one can have imagined where all this would lead!
