Week Eighteen: Tuesday 23rd July 2024

Hampshire's T20 campaign finished this week with a narrow and exciting victory against the 2023 losing finalists, Essex, at the Utilita Bowl. It meant both teams have not made it out of the Southern Group this summer. John Turner bowled with pace and skill, recording his best T20 figures of four for 23. Despite Allison' s fine 69 not out, the visitors, needing fifteen to win off Chris Wood's final over, could only scramble eight in front of a jubilant crowd. Hampshire had earlier posted a slightly above par 181 for 5, thanks in the main to a long overdue fifty from McDermott in an opening partnership of 97 with Vince. The captain made 41 and decided to go public this week about the awful traumas that his family have faced this summer, appealing for help to assist the police investigating two late night attacks on his home that has left his young family fearing for their safety. 

Vince launched an appeal for information through the press and the Professional Cricketers' Association after Hampshire Police could find no reasons why his home was burgled twice in the middle of the night in April and May. James and his family had to relocate while the home underwent repairs for more than a month, but the property was attacked again just one week after the repairs were finished and just after the Vinces had returned home again. Police have not yet found any motive for the attacks and can only suspect it is a case of mistaken identity. Teammate, Toby Albert, spoke for the whole dressing room when he paid tribute to his captain for his perseverance and character at such an incredibly distressing and unsettling time. Vince, capped 55 times by England across all formats, is still Hampshire's leading run-scorer across the County Championship and T20 Blast this season; he is now just three short of breaking 1,000 for the summer. Interviewed by The Cricketer magazine, Albert said, "It has obviously been really hard on him and it shows his character; he has carried on playing, carried on performing really well. He made 170 and then a double hundred in the Championship. To do that with everything going on is a credit to him. I couldn't think (how he has coped) and it is a credit to his character to keep his spirits high. It is obviously a tough time for him, for his family and everyone involved."

At Trent Bridge in a Test which was very closely contested for nearly four days, England claimed a series victory over West Indies on Sunday,  following a fine display of both fast and spin bowling late on the fourth afternoon. Shoaib Bashir claimed five wickets in the second innings and Chris Woakes six in the match, after Mark Wood had once again delivered an explosive spell to spurt England into life, once West Indies were set 385 for a series-levelling victory. Records were set aplenty during a Test where the first three innings all saw scores of over four hundred. England made four hundred in each innings for the first time ever. On Day Four, Joe Root made 122 and Harry Brook smashed 109, as the two Yorkshiremen in England's middle order picked up from where they had left off on Saturday to steer England's lead beyond 300. Root now stands eighth in the all time list of Test Cricket run-scorers - just thirteen runs less than the great Brian Lara  - and only sixty short of 12,000 Test runs. He went past Shivnarine Chanderpaul in this game where the modern day West Indian middle order performed far better than they had done at Lord's. 

While Root is now just one short of Cook's 33 Test hundreds for England, Brook made his fifth Test century in just 15 matches.  Jamie Smith kept well in both innings and, standing up to the stumps, held one particularly fine catch off the under-edge which would have pleased Ben Foakes. He looks a fine addition to the side with gloves and bat. Yet another Surrey man, Ollie Pope, added a second innings half century to his first-innings ton to suggest he is definitely rediscovering the consistent form which first attracted the selectors to him. All of which indicates, therefore, that the nucleus of this new England side – a side which is being built with a specific view to that Ashes series in 25/26 – is starting to emerge with confidence. We now know Shoaib will very likely be in Australia, along with Pope, Atkinson and Smith. We would not have said that with any certainty a week or two ago. 

The selection of Bashir over Leach has been the most interesting of all the talking points this summer around an England dressing room now without Anderson, Bairstow or Foakes. Bashir's height – “6ft 4in and still growing” – and high release point means he can generate good bounce, but he also has natural variation from the one that skids on. Very much like Moeen Ali, whose fourth‑innings record in Test cricket was very much underrated at times, Bashir went wider on the crease to the right-handers second time around. Bowling the aggressive Holder through the gate with one that spun sharply off the wicket was the pick of his first five-wicket haul in England. By getting himself on an England Test Match Honours Board (and still aged just 20), he did something no Hampshire player has ever done in England. Whilst playing their county cricket at the time for Hampshire, our county has only ever had two bowlers to take five wickets for England. They are Christopher Heseltine in 1896 and Alec Kennedy in 1923; both of these men took their five-wicket hauls in Tests in South Africa. 

Bashir grew visibly in confidence at Trent Bridge with his subtle changes of pace and appears remarkably unflappable for someone so young. He did not allow himself to become downbeat after failing to catch his captain’s eye at Lord’s and, much like the late and truly great Shane Warne used to, he just brushes off being hit for six as if it’s a minor inconvenience. The ceiling looks high for a very inexperienced bowler. Crucially, he has the backing of an England dressing room, which is a remarkable place, currently, for welcoming new talent and watching it flourish in the international arena. Atkinson, Smith and Bashir have all announced themselves already in these first two Tests. Rob Key, Brendan McCullum and Ben Stokes are all showing brilliant leadership in charge of our national team:  they have a clear shared vision; they consistently make bold and well-communicated tough decisions; they are able to balance the need for short and long term results very effectively; they are very aware of the bigger picture that Test Cricket is fighting every day for its very existence; they are able to create a happy, winning formula for this England Test team.  Talk this week behind the scenes is where next for the England white-ball team and whether Matthew Mott needs removing from that leadership team. Eoin Morgan would appear to be the perfect replacement, but he has stated on television that, for family reasons, it has come too soon for him. 

Setting the Scene in 2024 and 1968

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

My own preparations for the new cricket season in 2024 are slightly different this year. Owing to my far greater involvement with Hampshire Cricket Heritage - which has had a very successful relaunch this winter - I am certain that I am going to watch my beloved Hampshire with an even greater attachment to placing events on the field, at times, in the context of not just the more recent, but hopefully more distant past. Starting away at Durham is easy and a gentle introduction in terms of time - rather than distance travelled. Our rivalry with the most northern county is by far the shortest in terms of previous fixtures in red ball cricket. The first game of the 2024 season will be our 34th against Durham in the County Championship. I was fortunate enough to attend Hampshire’s first ever Championship match at home to Durham in 1992 and that game is featured on this website under the Scorecards Collection tab. 

Cricket has always been a game where statistics and records have been regularly alluded to during live television or radio coverage. Making comparisons from different eras - whilst trying to understand and take into account relevant context - milestones and breaking records are all part of the game’s DNA for players and spectators alike. English cricket back in 1968 was at a very low ebb and the only way was up for attendances watching cricket live across the country. Norman Preston began his editorial in that year's Wisden, “County Cricket has taken its biggest step forward in recent years by opening the door to Overseas players through the process of immediate registration. This bold move could be the salvation of the three-day County championship and I am only surprised that the plunge was not taken sooner.” Somehow it is extremely comforting and reassuring that existential crises have continually faced the counties since the start of the County Championship in 1890, and yet it continues to defy all the odds and survive; in doing so, it provides great entertainment for the enlightened and dedicated few, whilst remaining the bedrock for producing truly world class players like Anderson, Root, Stokes et al.

The first obvious comparison between the cricket seasons in 2024 and 1968 are the start dates for Hampshire’ first championship fixture. Back in 1968, Hampshire sat at Hove in the pavilion all day without a ball bowled. It was the first of May! This season, the first round of County Championship matches start on April 5th and by the 1st May they are scheduled to have played 16 days of red ball cricket. That will be approaching a third of the season completed and (even allowing for climate change!) that is already a very stark contrast with times gone by. The result of the game against champions Surrey at the Oval at the end of April will tell us a lot about whether Hampshire can really challenge again for the title in 2024. Back in May 1968, Yorkshire started the new campaign as champions and Hampshire were looking to improve on 11th place in the 17 team table (without Durham of course). 

Without any cricket to report for those weeks in April 1968 for John Arlott, I intend to use the time in my weekly update - alongside the journal of Hampshire's 2024 campaign - to include a few more details which might help to paint the picture of what county cricket was like back then when the big overseas stars first burst on the scene. This will involve trying to explain the point system change that year for the County Championship! The last word should go to John Arlott of course on that with his journal entry at the start of 1968, “We have, too, a new points-scoring system for the championship - by my reckoning the twenty-ninth system since the competition began, but that could be a considerable under-estimate.”

Preview of the 2024 Season Part 1

A Long and Winding Road

Week One:  Beginning March 25th 2024

Today Hampshire are in action in their second pre-season friendly against newly promoted Worcestershire at the newly named Utilita Bowl. It will not be a late finish, seeing as the clocks only go forward next weekend.  Checking the scores on the Play-Cricket site, Worcestershire are 23-2 in the 10th over and ex-Cheshire and Lancashire batsmen Rob Jones is just out for 2 caught by Liam Dawson off Ian Holland, having faced 32 balls*. It is the time of year when and where hope springs eternal, both within and beyond the boundary rope. Back in the glorious summer of 1959, Hampshire’s very own John Arlott wrote at the start of that season: ”Every April cricketers are filled anew with that hope that springs – if not eternally at least annually – even in the non bowler who goes in at number eleven for his village – that this season is going to see him reach a new crest of success”. This year, for all longstanding and loyal Hampshire fans, there will once again be a great sense of anticipation and expectation that this particular summer could be truly special. Never quite forgetting the disappointment of that final day of the 2021 season when Hampshire lost by one wicket to Lancashire at Aigburth, this top flight red ball campaign - with a slightly more balanced schedule in June and July - could one again offer the chance finally of the glory that matters most in domestic cricket. It would match the achievement of being at the summit, when it matters most, by the two championship winning teams of 1961 and 1973. Arguably, the Hampshire XI of exactly 50 years ago in 1974, who missed out so narrowly on retaining the title, was the strongest in the club’s history since we first competed in the 1895 championship. Even that team, though, did not get quite as close on the last day of the season to achieving the Holy Grail, as the class of 2021 ultimately did. 

Thrillingly - or maybe even chillingly for a few of us there that late September day in Liverpool (and given how cold it was at the end) the world suddenly stood still: history records that there were actually four balls when the 2021 side were just one wicket away from being crowned English County Champions. A game meandering to a tame, if not unsurprising, last day defeat, suddenly exploded in those last 20 overs into top table sporting drama. The drama and tension, after the hiatus of Covid and a first long rewarding summer again with spectators present, reached fever pitch for all those in the ground or watching on the live stream. Less than a mile or so from the homes of John and Paul in neighbouring Allerton, it definitely felt the end of a long and winding road. With my Winchester friends, Bill and Neil, sitting there with me amongst the Lancashire members on the Liverpool boundary edge, Mason Crane entered stage left at the end of the last scene of the last act. Famously, he took five wickets in no time, as well as enacting a brilliant direct hit run out, to bring Hampshire to the brink of glory. A tricky, tortuous final ascent had become a golden sprint in the autumn sunshine. This team suddenly came within one ball of writing its name indelibly into Hampshire folklore. When the whole red ball county season came down in the end in 2021 to the first two balls of the four, nearly fifty years of being an avid Hampshire fan sent me momentarily into a complete spin. Talking of spin, two leg spinners are the respective batsman and bowler on stage at the centre of this epic theatre. As Mason Crane bowled those two deliveries to Lancashire last man Matt Parkinson the championship from nowhere was suddenly there to win again. Parkinson survived somehow, more by luck than judgement. Two balls into the next over, when the resolute Vilas swept the brilliant Dawson for four, those dreams were shattered. In amongst all those feelings of "what if", I soon felt for poor Neil, who had to sit in the car with Bill all the way back to Hampshire! The lyrics of 'Many times I've been alone, And many times I've cried, Anyway you'll never know, the many ways I've tried." could not be more appropriate for Bill when it comes to which finals and dramatic games he attends in person and which ones he misses out on.

Three years on after a winter spent by England blooding three incredibly inexperienced spinners, neither Crane nor Parkinson were in the frame to play in India. Even more poignantly - as the England Captain and Coach pleaded, after a heavy series defeat, for more opportunities in domestic cricket for English spinners to profit on turning wickets - neither will be playing for their parent counties during the 2024 season. It is very much to be hoped both Crane and Parkinson are able to use their respective moves to rediscover their rhythm and form to match their standing of less than three years ago. Despite limited opportunities in County Cricket back then, Test Cricket was still a distinct possibility for both of them. Three years has also been a long time now to process that sense of deflation from that truly memorable last hour at Aigburth and to try and park those dreams of what might have been. One of the greatest - and certainly most celebrated - Lancashire fans Neville Cardus once wrote, “It is because cricket does not always hurry along, a constant hurly burly, every player propelled here and there by the pace of the continuous action, that there is time for character to reveal itself. We remember not the scores and results after years; it is the men who remain in our minds, in our imagination.” This match was one of those games where that was not entirely true. Having Arlott in the commentary for Hampshire and Cardus in the press box for Lancashire, would have been the only thing to make that day more captivating and memorable. 

The important footnote to that day’s events of course is that even though Lancashire celebrated that famous dramatic win, 24 hours later they were to taste totally contrasting emotions. Unlike Hampshire if they had won, Lancashire could still be overhauled in the table by Warwickshire, who still had much work to do to beat Somerset on the very last day of the whole season at Edgbaston. Having been rescued in the first innings by former Hampshire spinner Danny Briggs’ 53* - batting at number nine, the West Midlands county won easily in the end by 118 runs to take the title and shatter all Lancashire’s supporters dreams. Danny was a hugely popular player at Hampshire and part of the James Vince and Liam Dawson golden generation who broke through in or just before 2009. Nobody on the South Coast - and more specifically the Isle of Wight - could feel anything other than pride that this former Hampshire Academy graduate and England International was a County Championship Winner. Meanwhile Lancashire and Warwickshire will be Hampshire’s first two opponents at the newly named Utilita Bowl in the First Division of the County championship in April 2024. Over the past four seasons, Hampshire have finished third, fourth, third and third, with Surrey very much the team to beat in 2022 and 2023. Last season, Hampshire matched Surrey's eight championship victories, but heavy losses against Surrey and Essex meant we were never in contention to win it in September.  For us to finish top of the pile in 2024, with away fixtures at Div 2 Champions Durham and last Year's Division 1 Champions Surrey also in April, Hampshire's extremely talented team will need to be very competitive and consistent from Day One of the season.  Part 2 of this season's preview next week will focus on trying to assess Hampshire's chances, alongside those of their potential rivals in Division One, for the 2024 title. 

*Just as a footnote and having finished this piece, I have checked the Hampshire score again and Worcestershire's innings has closed after 45 overs on 116-11. The last man out is the aforementioned and doubly unfortunate Rob Jones - out this time batting second time round in the same innings for 1. His single came off 43 balls before he was given out lbw to James Fuller. Out twice in the same day for 3 off 75 balls, he could of course argue that time in the middle is all that matters in March!

Preview of the 2024 Season Part 2

Chance to Shine for County Cricket again in 2024

Week Two:  Beginning April 2nd 2024

Last summer's Ashes Series was a brilliant advert for the longer form of the game and every young player in the county game surely has a chance of catching the current England's selectors eyes, if they show the potential to make it at the highest level. Consistent performances over a long period are not necessarily the key currency needed currently; rather, it is showing the range of attacking shots, coupled with a sound method and strong mind as a batsman, or wicket taking ability through genuine pace as a quick bowler, that Key, McCullum and Stokes will be looking for most this summer. The requirement to find a fit and threatening genuine pace attack to go down under to compete in 25/26 must be their number one priority, as far as the next Ashes series is concerned. With reference to the brand of positive and attacking cricket England have been playing for two years now, Vic Marks writes on page 34 of the April 2024 Cricketer Magazine, "The manner in which the national team has been playing should have a significant impact on the championship. Whatever the outcome in India there was still something uplifting about the efforts of Ben Stokes' side. County Cricketers will have made a note. The emphasis on attacking batsmanship will not be deserted by this England set-up so there is not much future in blocking."

With three additional points available for the draw this season in the County Championship, does that fly slightly in the face of what Vic Marks is envisaging? Accepting his point on the individual level about selection for the national side to bat in the top seven, the point surely will be for a County team in 2024 that the draw has to be a vital important option, if victory is out of reach. England currently want to win at all costs, with no thoughts of drawing any five day game. Both James Vince and Adi Birrell talked about  - at the Fans Forum on Wednesday night broadcast on Radio Solent from the Utilita Bowl (available on BBC Sounds) - the need for all Division one sides to avoid costly losses; Hampshire's stated aim for the new season, from both captain and coach, was definitely to take more of the red ball games deeper into the fourth day. Patience and fitness were cited as being key. Hampshire have clearly identified the need for greater fitness from all the players as one of the key components in the renewed quest to try and win the elusive County Championship. 

We have come so close in recent recent seasons, matching Surrey's tally of eight wins last season for example, but losing the key battles - at the Oval in particular - has been an area to address for those in charge. James and Adi also highlighted the fact that the Kookaburra ball being used in more four day games this season had come into their pre-season planning and thinking. Neither thought life would be easier for any opening batsmen on the circuit with the Kookaburra ball. However, the less pronounced seam meant that after the first twenty overs of an innings wickets were likely to be even harder to get. All the top teams bat far deeper in the 1st Division and this has been a great strength for Hampshire with James Fuller, Keith Barker and Kyle Abbott all capable of taking quick runs off flagging attacks late on a hot day. Assessing Hampshire's chances of ultimate success in the Title race will come at the end of this piece, after looking at all the other nine teams' squads in the order that we play them during the season in the County Championship.

First up is Durham and we play them both away and at home before the middle of May. They are also the opponent I am looking forward most to seeing live in Hampshire Championship matches this season. They took the Second Division by storm last season, playing an attacking form of cricket which mirrored most that of the England side. Can they be successful trying to replicate that in the top flight this campaign? Their first innings run rate was above four on 11 occasions last summer, when they accumulated an incredible 54 batting points. Alex Lees, Graham Clark, David Bedingham and Ollie Robinson all scored quickly and heavily, while Ben McKinney looks a top prospect. Brydon Carse and Matthew Potts have not looked out of place in the international arena, while the addition of Scot Boland to partner Ben Raine looks a very astute signing. They promise to be tough opponents and a good watch in 2024.

We play Lancashire in the first home game at the newly named Utilita Bowl in April, but have to wait until the end of August for the return fixture in Manchester. As a result, we are likely to face Australia's Nathan Lyon in April and England's Tom Hartley in August when Lancashire opt for any spin.  Winning both those two games would be a major step forward towards winning the title for Hampshire. In 153 Championship games since 1895, we have won a mere 19. It is now sixteen four day games since our last victory against Lancashire in the Championship in 2009. Last April, rain ruled out the last day in the home game, with Hampshire well placed and Lancashire facing a tough last day chase. In 2023 Lancashire only lost one game (to Essex) in the whole season and with more points now available for the draw should be even more in the Title race this summer. Keaton Jennings, Luke Wells, Phil Salt and Josh Bohannon are a very impressive English top four; they have very promising emerging talent in George Balderson, George Bell, Matty Hurst and George Lavelle; their seam attack with Tom Bailey, Saqib Mahmood, Will Williams, Luke Wood and a certain James Anderson promise heaps of wickets, while the spin department has international class in abundance. 

Warwickshire are our next opponents at home in April and they will be captained by somebody familiar to all Southern Brave fans, Alex Davies. Having first seen him in a Lancashire Under 11 game, I always felt he would have been a good signing for Hampshire, as an attacking top order batsman and chirpy gloveman, once things began to go sour for him at Old Trafford. The attack at Alex's disposal, picked out of Chris Rushworth, Oliver Hannon-Dalby, Hassan Ali, Chris Woakes, Richard Gleeson, Craig Miles, Liam Norwell, George Garton, Ed Barnard, Moeen Ali and Danny Briggs, looks incredibly strong in terms of both quality and depth. Like a number of other top tier sides, getting runs on the board may be the biggest challenge. Sam Hain remains, though, a quality act with the bat in all formats.

The end of this first month sees a trip to defending Champions and title favourites to land a third championship triumph in a row, Surrey. The signing of Dan Lawrence strengthens that claim because, if they have had a weaker area over the past two seasons when they have won the CC, it has been the loss of early wickets that have made winning games harder. Their overseas signings and resilient lower order have all too often saved the day in the past two summers, before their excellent bowling attack has got to work with the ball. Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes will be available form the start of the season. Jamie Smith looks an England player in waiting and Surrey's depth in the seam department even eclipses Lancashire and Warwickshire. They certainly remain the team to beat in Alec Stewart's final season in charge this summer. We again play Surrey away and at home before any white white ball cricket starts this summer. The lop sided nature of the fixture list, where we will have played two teams at home and away in the first eight games, but then don't play two of the remaining teams until late September (and then just once each anyway as the last two games of the season), is just crazy and amateurish on a number of levels. 

Our only other opponents in the first eight games are Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. They have raided Worcestershire for much of their attack with the acquisition of Dillon Pennington and Josh Tongue to back up Dane Patterson, Olly Stone, Brett Hutton, Luke Fletcher and Liam Patterson-White. Joe Clarke still has time to play for England and Jack Haynes looks another very canny additional signing from poor Worcestershire. After the first set of June T20 fixtures, the next new red ball opponents are Kent at home. Like Nottinghamshire, I just don't see them challenging in the top half this season. Daniel Bell-Drummond is captain in all three formats, Zak Crawley will light up any game he now plays, while the wicket keeping duties may well fall to Harry Finch. A number of significant recent departures, including the superb keeper/batsmen Ollie Robinson (left for Durham) and Jordan Cox (left for Essex), leaves their squad looking thin. Ben Compton, Joe Denly and the captain will surely need very good seasons with the bat for them to survive in the top flight for another season. Their attack looks much less threatening than all the other Division One sides - save for Worcestershire's after their crucial personnel losses. 

Hampshire play Essex for the only time in red ball cricket at home in late August. Dean Elgar has been brought in to replace Sir Alastair Cook.  The home grown attack of Sam Cook, Jamie Porter, Aaron Beard, Paul Walter and Shane Snater, to add to the overseas brilliance of Simon Harmer, should ensure that they are always capable of taking twenty wickets.  September's opponents, Worcestershire look both the weakest squad and first choice eleven in the division on paper. It is very much to be hoped that the likes of Jake Libby and Gareth Roderick can build on last season's success in their promotion campaign. Worcestershire remain very much a popular club which faces great challenges on and off the field just to stay afloat. A keen fan and close friend assures me the arrival of Ashley Giles is making a big difference already in helping his favourite club navigate these currently very difficult waters at New Road. Fifty years on from denying Hampshire the County Championship title in 1974, they will do unbelievably well this year to stay out of the bottom two in the final reckoning. Somerset at Taunton is the final game of the season and the first time we play them in the 2024 County Championship! Last season, they were the best T20 Team bar none.  James Rew was their stand out run maker in 2023 in red ball cricket; he will face a challenging second season - like all promising starlets on the circuit -  to match his tally of 1,086 at 57.15. Tom Abell has relinquished the captaincy and could be a heavy run scorer this year as a result. Both may yet have England careers post Root, Foakes and Stokes - when that dreaded time comes!

That just leaves one team left to preview for 2024. Hampshire's pace trio of Kyle Abbott, Mohammed Abbas and Keith Barker - along with Captain James Vince and top all-rounder Liam Dawson - all definitely deserve to be in a Championship winning side. For that to be the case in 2024, it feels as if all hopefully need to stay fit and be available for nearly every CC game. Nick Gubbins, Tom Prest, Fletcha Middleton, Ben Brown and Ali Orr also all need to take run scoring as a collective unit to the next level in Division One cricket. They are all more than capable of doing just that. Others like James Fuller, Ian Holland, Toby Albert, Felix Organ, Joe Weatherley, Brad Wheal, John Turner, Eddie Jack and Dom Kelly will hopefully grab the limelight, if and when opportunities occur during the season. The true arrival of Orr, Middleton and Prest as automatic picks by the end of August feels crucial to a title challenging campaign. If Tom Prest begins to emulate the run scoring of his former England Under 19 teammate James Rew this summer, we are all going to be in for a treat.  

Whatever happens, the spirit of the club and the desire to win the championship by this group of players is beyond any doubt. The coach exudes calmness and class, just like the captain. It is clear from what they have both said publicly recently that the attack wants to bowl even straighter this season, presumably to bring lbw and bowled even more into play with the Kookaburra ball. The slip cordon has been a real strength of the side to watch in recent seasons and hopefully Liam can be in his usual place from game one after last season's injuries.  A preview of this amazing Hampshire squad's chances in the T20 and 50 Over competitions will follow nearer the start of both competitions. In the meantime, let's hope for some wonderful sunny days watching Hampshire at home and away, spent basking in the drama of numerous twists and turns of great County Championship cricket, with the icing on any cake - locking away another first class JMV ton (or five or six) in the memory bank and being able to say yet again "I was there to see him make it all look so classy and effortless" in years to come. April is nothing else, if not the month to start dreaming again as a devoted Hampshire fan, watching this vastly experienced and highly skilled squad, brilliantly led by a captain going into his ninth full season in charge. Luck, the weather, fitness and form, coming out on the right side in tight finishes and breakthrough seasons for young players will all need to play their part, if we are to break that 51 year wait for The County Championship Title. At this time of year, I always cling on to the hope and genuine belief that this current team's chances are far, far better than those rated as 66-1 outsiders in 1973, who were the last Hampshire side to reach the summit. In fact, apart from Surrey, I genuinely give us as good a chance as anyone to finish top of the pile. The performances against key potential rivals in April will, though, quickly tell us a good deal about whether those Championship hopes and dreams are justified. Train ticket to Chester-le-Street on Friday has been booked for weeks and now it is just in the lap of the gods for the weather to play ball in the North East. 

Week Three: Tuesday 9th April 2024

Never could the beginning of a County Championship season have started with such a wonderful blend and juxtaposition of predictability and unpredictability in its first round of matches. The predictability was the lack of play with the weather in the North East, the unpredictability was the number of Northeast runs in the South East. Make your own mind up about which category the following achievements and happenings also fall into: Essex stole a march on all the other Division One teams with a Cook very much in the headlines; a former Bedfordshire batsman last season made a hundred in each innings for Worcestershire; 1151 runs were scored at Lord’s before the tenth wicket of the game fell; Surrey’s four seamers of Roach, Lawes, Clark and Overton managed to claim one Lancashire wicket in their 35 overs - in contrast to the nine taken in 37 by their two part time spinners Steel and Lawrence; a very kind Lord’s steward showed tact and kindness, by letting my three year old grandson in for free to witness history in the making in St John’s Wood. 

Former Kent and Hampshire batsman, Sam Northeast declared in his first game as Glamorgan captain at Lord’s with his side on 620 for 3. The single he clipped into the leg side off Henry Brookes to take him to 334 was acknowledged with a standing ovation, as he had surpassed Graham Gooch’s unforgettable 333 against India in 1990 and become the highest ever individual scorer in a first-class innings at the Home of Cricket. His score (335*) was the highest ever made in April in the history of the County Championship and meant he was already over a third of the way towards a thousand runs by the end of May! The previous highest Championship score against Middlesex at Lord’s had stood since 1926; this was when Jack Hobbs, aged 43, made 316 not out for Surrey.

Up in the North East, the prospects of watching a ball bowled on the opening day of the “summer” at Durham Emirates ICG felt minimal, with the dual threat of train strikes and poor weather looming large before 11 o’clock on Friday April 5th. While the vast majority of the day’s trains in the country were sitting idly in sidings, the 08.32 TransPennine Express from Manchester Victoria ran amazingly to time, pulling in at Chester-le-Street at 11.01. According to my phone, play was, however, underway in only two fixtures in Division One around the country: Worcestershire were put in at Edgbaston and Essex were inserted at Trent Bridge. Inside the ground the covers were off, but there wasn’t any activity from either ground staff mopping up or players eagerly warming up. The writing was soon on the wall despite the blue sky overhead. An announcement came through after the cursory Umpires Inspection that play was not going to take place that day. Sadly, Days Two,Three and Four all followed suit. It was the back end of that wet summer of 1974 all over again - with just a touch less at stake! The blank Durham scorecards on sale for £1 will forever remain blank, given that the teams were only due to be announced at a toss which never happened. 

On the eve of that first day of the season last Friday, I had the pleasure of reading an article entitled “A Memorable Day” by Dave Allen (which has been posted on this site under the History / Dave Allen tabs. In it, Dave celebrates 65 years of watching Hampshire and reflects that he has seen almost exactly half of the total number of years the club has played first class cricket. He acknowledges gratefully, in his conclusion, that the first 65 years from 1895-1958 are ones he has always enjoyed researching, but were, nevertheless, successive eras where Hampshire remained trophyless throughout. In stark contrast, since 1959 - when he spent his first day at the cricket, as a 10 year-old, at the United Services Ground in Portsmouth - the Club has won everything there is to win. Somehow it is just so reassuring to read that others first bitten by the County Championship watching bug in early childhood, just can’t shake it off 65 years later! There was a healthy gathering of dedicated Durham members who stoically accepted the news with resignation on Day One. My heart really went out, though, to the visiting Hampshire fans who had made the long trek north and were staying over for all four days. Having been thanked cordially for coming by the coach Adi Birrell, they discussed plans to visit Beamish Museum and nearby Durham. 

The season’s first hat-trick came on Day Two of the new season at Trent Bridge. Sam Cook turned the game round with Notts handily placed on 259-4 and Joe Clarke in full flow and a hundred to his name. 6 wickets then fell for 34 runs. Sam Cook finished with 4-59; he soon made that a ten for in the match for very few more. His stand out figures of 14-10-14-6, in Notts’s second innings demise for just 80, gave Essex victory by the huge margin of 254 runs in what had been quite a tight game until Day Four. The Essex win, though, might just turn out to be particularly important in their ambitions for the season; there is a possible points deduction awaiting, if the bat that opener Feroze Khushi was ordered to change after an on-field check on Day Two is confirmed to have exceeded the maximum permitted size.

The final word on Hampshire’s false start with Durham is the start made by another ex-player who had previously been released by both clubs. Cameron Steel made 29 in his only County Championship match for Hampshire in 2021. At Durham, Cameron Steel had four years earlier become the youngest double-centurion in Durham's history, when he struck 224 against Leicestershire at Grace Road, aged just 21. In 2021, he moved down to Surrey on a two-year mid-season deal, where he has been operating primarily as a squad player in all three formats. Along with high profile new signing Dan Laurence - surely signed from Essex for his batting - Steel came on to take the first five wicket haul of the season in Division One at Old Trafford. From 150-2, Lancashire totally collapsed to part time spin and were 202 all out. Nathan Lyon and Tom Hartley were soon introduced into the attack when Surrey batted. It felt like we were watching Test cricket in India all over again, with spinners in tandem after less than 10 overs, even though it was still a wet, damp day under leaden skies in April in Manchester. 

The apogee of unpredictability came probably though at Edgbaston. Kashif Ali has a cricketing CV which includes Bedfordshire, Essex 2nd XI, Kent 2nd XI, Northants 2nd XI, Notts 2nd XI, Leicestershire 2nd XI and Worcestershire 2nd XI. Batting at three for Worcestershire against a strong Warwickshire attack, he made 110 first time round off 188 balls; not content with one ton, he made 133 off 128 balls (with 5 sixes) in the second innings. Let’s hope Ali Orr can do likewise at the Utilita Bowl on Friday against Lancashire, if he finally gets to bat against this Kookaburra ball, Only eight Hampshire players have ever made a hundred on debut for the club; unsurprisingly, nobody has made two in their first game. To learn more, read Dave Allen’s article on Hampshire batting debuts under the History / Dave Allen / Batting Debuts tab on this site.

Week Four: Tuesday 16th April 2024

Viewing live cricket from the Shane Warne Stand this week, it was hard not to lionise a current Australia top-class Test bowler, wheeling away for his new county, Lancashire. He did after all bowl the lion’s share of all the first innings overs. He was neither rampant nor caged, but just a menacing and captivating presence all day. Tellingly just after lunch on Day One, he removed both Gubbins (50) and Vince (56) who had earlier come together at 26-2. This was significant in the case of Gubbins because he had scored a century in each innings in the last home fixture against Lancashire just under two years ago. As for Vince, anyone who has followed his illustrious career will recall it was Nathan Lyon’s direct hit that ran him out at the Gabba in November 2017 in the first Ashes Test, just when he looked set to make a real breakthrough England first Test hundred. Lyon’s value to Australia since then has assumed Warne proportions; he really is that good. In last year’s Ashes series, Lyon helped Australia to a 2-0 lead at Lord’s, but his calf injury sustained there then meant, not just that he missed the rest of the series, but from then on England held the upper hand. Only the weather at Old Trafford prevented England completing the first ever 3-2 comeback in an Ashes series. When studying Lyon close up again this week, you can’t help but be impressed by the energy that goes into his action, how much late dip he is able to generate in the flight, how much he is clearly admired by his new teammates and how quickly he is able to get through his overs. Most were completed in less than 3 minutes, with virtually no let up for the batsman facing. He owns the stage, regularly interacts with the non-striking batsman and is a worthy successor to that Victorian genius and Hampshire legend, who so sadly passed away now over two years ago. Deliberately going round the wicket to the right handers in the first innings generated the patches of rough that he was then able to exploit from the other end in the second. A battle-hardened campaigner and a superb signing for Lancashire, unless you are Tom Hartley.  

A few Lancashire members, making the long trip down and sitting nearby, were quick to seize on his non-selection at the toss, quipping that "this was their 'B Team' - with Bohannon, Balderson, Blatherwick, Bailey and Bruce all in the side. The 'A Team' of Anderson and 'Artley were still back home up north!" Their mood - like many England fans and the team management who are desperate to see Hartley and Bashir playing as much red ball cricket as possible for their respective counties this summer - will not have improved after just 13 overs of Hampshire's second innings. Tom Bailey, instead of bowling seam up, ceremoniously changed his boots and reverted to bowling off spin. He was the fourth part time spinner used in the match by this point, after Wells, Gubbins and Prest had all turned their arms over in the two first innings. How do you explain this, especially when champions Surrey are seemingly perfecting the art of using part time spin? In last season’s County Championship they took just 17 wickets with spin, whereas 232 were shared evenly between a seven-strong battery of frontline pace bowlers — five of whom often appeared in the same XI. Deep fast-bowling strength was their championship winning formula too the year before. In this embryonic campaign so far, Lawrence and Steel have already taken 18 of the 26 wickets Surrey have claimed.

Vis-a-vis run outs and early season rustiness, the biggest negative for Hampshire before lunch on Day One was the seemingly needless demise of Fletcha Middleton. The first thing to say was the "Lyonesque" direct hit from Balderson at the keeper’s end meant I could immediately give it out from a superb vantage point at the top of the Shane Warne stand. The second thing is maybe a plea for clemency for both batsmen in that they are not used to batting together - with Orr on debut. They were finding life so tough against the new ball that they were absolutely right to try and maximise the left-hand and right-hand opening batting combination, by looking to pinch quick singles in the ring and keep the board moving. After that, it is just those obvious questions surrounding culpability in a mix-up which make this game so fascinating, challenging and cruel. Was there a single there? Did Middleton call early enough? Should Orr have responded immediately by sprinting through and diving to make it? Should Orr have sent him back earlier? Could Middleton have turned to get back quicker? Do coaches ever specifically practise with players (and particularly where there are new partnerships), during pre-season square practices, calling and running between the wickets? Those were the short term questions; longer term, and far more tellingly after both innings in which they both failed, can Orr and Middleton develop an understanding which creates a truly effective opening partnership, thus solving Hampshire’s biggest problem of the last 5 years? For Lancashire poor George Bell evened it up, but his disappointment could not have been more painful or different. Looking for his maiden ton, and 99 not out in only his fifteenth first-class innings, he tried to run on a misfield. Holland's direct hit at the same end as the earlier run out of Middleton produced the same result. Whilst on the subject of young and emerging talent, it was very evident again that Hampshire's Tom Prest can truly shine at this level. His reverse sweeps against Lyon to put pressure back on Australia’s third highest ever wicket-taker in Test Cricket, followed by a slog sweep six, were among his highlights in a very attacking and attractive first innings 85 made off just 119 balls. He followed that up in the second innings with an unbeaten and untroubled 47 off 70 balls. 

Earlier on Day Two when Lancashire began their reply in response to Hampshire’s 367, this writer was intrigued to see how many their two left-handed openers would muster together. They were unlikely to match what had been busily unfolding at Edgbaston, where poor Durham took their first Warwickshire wicket at 341 and their second at 562. Rob Yates was first to go for 191; his opening partner and former Lancashire batsman/ keeper Alex Davies smashed 256 off 311 balls. First wicket partnerships around the country are either feast or famine currently: none of Hampshire, Notts, Somerset, Worcestershire, Essex, Kent, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Derbyshire or Northants reached 25 in their first innings, whereas Surrey didn’t lose their first wicket until 167, which was still less - to be fair - than half of Warwickshire’s 341! Wells and Jennings got through the new ball relatively untroubled against Abbas and Abbott, adding eventually 87, before they were parted. Jennings advanced down the pitch regularly to all three Hampshire seamers, made the most of the two lives offered, and occupied the crease with customary purpose to finish with 172. Seven other players, though, made more even than that in this second round of games. The stand out most promising English left-hand opener on the county circuit - in my opinion - made the highest score. Northants’ Emilio Gay became the third batsman this season to pass 250 before the middle of April, when he was eventually run out for 261 at Wantage Road against the luckless Middlesex; it was they who also suffered last week at the hands of Northeast at Lord’s. Just like Joe Clarke, who scored his 22nd first-class ton this week for Notts, Emilio may just have what it takes to play in the international arena. When Prithvi Shaw finishes at the IPL and rejoins Northants, that is an opening partnership definitely worth keeping an eye on. 

Still on Middlesex, their game saw 1105 runs scored at Northampton for the loss of just 8 wickets. Durham, meanwhile, also amassed 517 and yet still ended up following on at Edgbaston! Going into the last day, all the first and second division matches remained in progress, with the draw the most likely option in nearly all. Dropped catches, run outs and missed run outs are to be avoided at all costs when wickets are proving harder to come by with the Kookaburra ball. Hampshire being docked points for the Essex wicket at home last season - and with a further punishment hanging over them if it recurs - meant this first Utilita Bowl wicket of the season looked particularly flat. Hardly a ball went to a slip on the off side all game. Time taken out of the game at the Oval on the last morning prevented Surrey getting over the line against Somerset, leaving Essex as the only first division side to register a win so far this season. Worcestershire are competing superbly so far in a league where wins are simply going to be scarcer on all the evidence seen so far.

The first and last word this week ends poignantly though back with spin. Firstly, on a happy note, Alex Thomson's 11 wickets in the match for Derbyshire was a triumph for another player I remember well from umpiring his games regularly at school all those years ago for King's Macclesfield and then Denstone College in Staffordshire. Secondly, ahead of the Hampshire v Lancashire game -  and with the exciting prospect of watching a world class Australian off-spinner wheeling away with the aforementioned Kookaburra ball - I gained a proper reality check and reminder about the importance of “carpe diem”, listening to Daniel Norcross on Thursday’s World Parkinson’s Day. He was interviewing former Hampshire and England off- spinner Shaun Udal whose daily nightmare is to trying managing this incredibly cruel disease. As arguably Hampshire’s finest ever off-break bowler, Udal took 1,330 wickets in a senior career lasting 21 years. Having made 10 one-day international appearances for England in the mid-'90s, he only made his Test debut in Multan at the age of 36. His five appearances for England that winter, culminated in him famously taking 4-14 in the final innings in Mumbai, to help his side to a series-equalling victory. "You've got to make the most of every good day. And some days there are bad days, which is really hard to take, but the people around you do suffer as well - you've got to have a strong network and try to have a positive mindset." Sport continues to play a huge part in his life moving forwards. Now aged 55 and five years on from his diagnosis, he remains an inspiration, long after retiring as one of Hampshire’s home grown superstars. A wonderful ambassador for the County game, a great team man, a winner in one-day finals at Lord’s - I have only great memories of watching Warne and Udal make spin bowling seem an art form all of its own. 

That was then followed by the incredibly sad news - during Day Four of these county games - regarding the passing of that true icon of Kent and England cricket, Derek Underwood, aged 78. He was as lethal an opponent as you could imagine in most conditions. He was also an incredibly mild-mannered, friendly and humble man, whose elder brother became a very good personal friend of mine over many years at my local cricket club Elworth, in South Cheshire. Keith, who also very sadly passed away last year was a very decent cricketer in his own right, but he could not have been more proud of Derek, whose record of 297 Test victims in 86 Tests is an England record for a spinner. When he introduced me to Derek on a couple of occasions, I was just struck by his total humility and understated greatness. Caught Knott bowled Underwood was only rivalled by caught Marsh bowled Lillee as a child. In the days well before the use of DRS, he finished with 2,465 first-class wickets at the astounding average of 20.28. He took ten wickets in a first-class match on 47 occasions; five wickets or more on 153 occasions. He was, simply put, a match-winner. He was also a wonderful family man who suffered cruelly with dementia towards the end of his lfe. His remains, though, a unique surname in this great game; it is one which will always conjure up so many special memories of a unique approach to the wicket and rhythmic bowling action which was so often just unplayable, particularly on drying pitches. He was able to alter his pace, bring all forms of dismissals into play and restrict batsmen's scoring options, like only the select few very greatest bowlers of all time have ever been consistently able to do.

Week Five: Tuesday 23rd April 2024

The Dukes Ball was back to replace the hotly debated Kookaburra. How did we know this from the boundary edge? Because after eight overs, it had already gone out of shape and needed to be replaced! Hampshire ended up bowling with four different balls on Day One. Not a single one of them swung off the straight, often in helpful overhead conditions. Admittedly, wickets fell more regularly at other venues, but from the moment Warwickshire won the toss, the bat was on top on another docile Southampton pitch. Warwickshire's in form top three all showed form and attacking intent on a strip which was a long way over towards the Nursery Ground; it was either one or four on that side of this huge ground where the outfield was markedly drier than last week.

This week’s diary starts in Portsmouth and ends in Portsmouth. Having attended Day One of the Hampshire game at the Utitila Bowl and watch Alex Davies cruise past three figures again, it was time to head south east down the M27 to watch Pompey be crowned League One Champions. It meant more to the six others with me and I confess to keep checking my phone for the Hampshire score throughout the game. The overlap between football and cricket used to be so much greater. When I started watching in the 1969/70 season, Ron Tindall was about to succeed George Smith as the Portsmouth manager. Conditional on signing earlier for Chelsea as a player, Tindall negotiated an arrangement with the club, whereby he was allowed to miss the first and last months of the football season to play cricket for Surrey. Tindall scored 5446 runs in first-class matches at an average of 24.86, including two centuries and with a highest score of 109 not out. He also bowled off spin, when Laker and Locke were on England duty, taking 150 wickets at 32.38, with best figures in an innings of 5–41. The days of Mike Barnard and then later Chris Balderstone and Phil Neale excelling at both sports are simply unimaginable nowadays. 

Coming off the back of an epic 343-run opening stand against Worcestershire at Edgbaston last week, Alex Davies continued his run-fuelled start to the Vitality County Championship season with an attacking century, as Warwickshire piled on first day runs against Hampshire. The New Bears skipper Davies, who knows the ground so well from his Southern Brave experience, has already totted up 481 runs this season – over 60 per cent of the runs he managed in 2023 – with scores of 36, 256 and on this occasion 149 and 40 to lead in both innings from the front. He was partnered with equally high-scoring Rob Yates and Will Rhodes; they are now are up to 370 and 348 runs this campaign after Yates made 69 and 84*, and Rhodes 81 and 25 at the Utilita Bowl. Warwickshire ended Day One very handily placed on 340 for four. Liam Dawson claimed his first two wickets in what was to be another five wicket haul. As a cricketer, he is beginning to enter Darren Stevens territory as someone who just gets better with age in all parts of the game. He is the mainstay of the attack in terms of wickets and overs bowled, a brilliant fielder and a batsman who so rarely plays a false shot against seam or spin.

While I had time off to go to Fratton Park with friends, Warwickshire set Hampshire a challenge to avoid the follow-on after reaching 455 all out on Day Two on a very flat pitch. Fletcha Middleton and Nick Gubbins unhurriedly scored half-centuries in reply, adding 124 together for the unbroken second wicket to get Hampshire to 140 for one – 315 behind the visitors – at the end of the day. The city of Portsmouth (with its record number of pubs per square mile) celebrated a return to the Championship, meanwhile, despite defeat at home to Wigan. Awake early on Day Three, I left my hotel in Old Portsmouth, in order to retrace some steps from exactly 50 years ago. Warwickshire were the visitors at Burnaby Road for my first ever game back in 1974. The King's Gate and the pavilion are two of the reminders of how the ground used to look, when Hampshire played there nearly every year in the 20th Century when first-class cricket was able to be staged in this country. Two wonderful new additions since then, which I was able to photograph (see below) on my phone, are the Spinnaker Tower and the Charles Dickens monument in the Guildhall Square.

Week Five (continued): Tuesday 23rd April 2024

It was only in the second session on Day Three, after Nick Gubbins had already gone to three figures (making 119 off 249 deliveries with a strike rate of 49.37), that Fletcha Middleton celebrated his maiden Vitality County Championship century. Former Academy graduate Middleton, who was vey impressive in last season’s Metro Bank One Day Cup run to the Trent Bridge Final, amassed 116, having added 213 runs for the second wicket with fellow centurion Gubbins. Having gone past 50 on a number of occasions in last season's Championship - but not being able to convert those scores to the magic three figures - this was a special moment for the player and his family. Tony, his father, made his maiden first-class hundred against Kent 34 years ago this week. At one stage, in the nervous nineties, Fletcha was confronted with four midwickets, three short covers, a man under the helmet close in on the offside and a solitary slip. They were all having a word and it was not about the exciting FA Cup Semi-Final or anything to do with that late offside at Wembley! A breakthrough moment for a batsman with great composure, a reliable technique and set-up, as well as excellent powers of concentration. His areas for development will definitely include rotating the strike more effectively, by hitting gaps and creating better angles from shots which currently are often straight to fielders in the ring. There are times, though, particularly as a young player making your way in the game, when you just have to play for yourself to secure a place in a team; batsmen have always been judged on weight of runs and personal landmarks.  

More significantly in the context of this game, Hampshire lost five wickets for 45 runs, which meant a score of 103 for six in that second session. The top six on the scorecard, with Fuller promoted unsuccessfully above Vince in the order to try and up the rate significantly in the hunt for a second batting point in the twenty overs remaining before the 110 over cut-off, was a strange looking mix of four single-figure scores and two centuries. Liam Dawson and Ben Brown then steadied the ship with an important 41-run stand. However, Hampshire’s slow scoring throughout the innings meant they only picked up a single batting bonus point. By way of comparison, Warwickshire reached their first batting point in 67.2 overs, while Hampshire only reached 250 and their first point in 93.4 overs. When Hampshire were dismissed for 365, the deficit was still ninety. 

Warwickshire continued to bat at nearly 5 an over on Day Four, There was to be no declaration because of the rain. Warwickshire deservedly claimed 3 more points than Hampshire's 10 for the draw. In the table, Hampshire sit 6th on 30 points. Essex who hammered Lancashire, are top on 57, closely followed by Champions Surrey on 49. They beat Kent at Canterbury and host Hampshire at the Oval this week. A good friend and loyal Hampshire supporter from Portsmouth on leaving the ground at the end of this game at the Utilita Bowl summed things up well for me when he felt the season just hadn't got going yet for Hampshire. Our Great Expectations could yet be replaced by Hard Times in Division One. From 11.01 on Day One, Warwickshire had certainly been in the ascendancy, making good use of the toss and pitch. The injuries to both Barker and Turner have significantly depleted our attack. If there is to be a Championship challenge this season, then the trip to South London probably needs to herald a first win or a draw with at least five bonus points. Elsewhere in the country, Joe Clarke, with another 213 not out at Taunton, is surely leading the charge for international honours, Middlesex have announced they may well have to consider moving away from Lord's and five batsmen are averaging over a hundred in the County Championship this season so far. Three of them were on show for Warwickshire in this game and - talking of real personal landmarks - in the race to a thousand runs by the end of May, Alex D leads Joe C by just one run. He may not have done it by the 1st of May, but back on the 17th June 1992 at Grace Road, the first batsman in the country to pass 1,000 first-class runs that English summer was a certain TC Middleton. 

Week Six: Tuesday 30th April 2024

For the latest current round of matches in Division One, it was a trip to the Oval for Day One of Surrey v Hampshire and then Kidderminster for Day Four of Worcestershire v Somerset. The contrast in facilities matched those of the weather conditions. The difference between watching Surrey and Worcestershire at home on these two particular days was like comparing top flight sport at the new White Hart Lane, in gorgeous sunshine, with Kenilworth Road in a swirling wind. None of that should diminish, though, from the brilliant effort Worcestershire are making on and off the field both to compete in every game in Division One, while trying to stage cricket on a club ground with very little money. The main reason for going to watch Worcestershire play Somerset is that Hampshire play neither of them both home and away this season. Worse than that, we only play either of them for the first time in mid and late September. One of the joys of being a County Member, who regularly attends matches, is the chance to watch all the teams in the division; you can then properly gauge their strengths and weaknesses, while looking out for those young hopefuls pushing their claims to "brook" that gap and play in the international arena. 

At the Oval this week, Gus Atkinson did just that, as he hopes to be given the chance this summer to begin to try and fill the huge boots left behind by Stuart Broad's retirement. It was of course on this ground late last summer that Stuart signed off his truly stellar international career in fairy tale style. Just like Stuart, the gas holder behind the scoreboard is also very much heading into retirement. Surrey County Cricket Club are very adept at preserving heritage and history on their ground in the forms of permanent displays, plaques, honours boards and framed photographs; it is somehow very fitting, therfore, that there is a preservation order on the iconic, if undeniably ugly, giant metal frame of the old gas holder, now in amongst all the cranes and building works that are further altering the skyline for future generations watching at this famous old ground. When it came to issuing preservation orders on their own wicket, one former England player - who also looks somewhat ugly at the crease - showed his enduring quality, yet again, in the heat of the battle to play a key role in tormenting Hampshire.  Since Rory Burns was dropped by England, he has captained his County to two Championship victories and in this game his obduracy, shot selection, ability to leave the ball outside off stump, rotation of strike and occupation of the crease showed why - under a previous regime - he is international class. It seems that Hampshire have consistently found no other England batsman on the county circuit harder to remove than either Gary Ballance and Rory Burns in the last ten years. 

On the first day of the game between Surrey and Hampshire at the hugely impressive Oval, each of the three sessions produced a different kind of drama, each very much of its own. In the opening session, on a green coloured wicket which clearly had a lot of grass left on it, Hampshire really struggled. Just like the constant stream of red buses down the Harleyford Road - as celebrated in years gone by Blowers on TMS - Hampshire lost wickets in clusters. Throughout a brightly lit sunlit day, Surrey and Hampshire seamers all bowled accurately and intelligently, taking 15 wickets in total for just 274 hard-earned runs. The pick of them was the Australian Dan Worrall, who has a slightly unconventional curved approach towards the wicket, which certainly doesn't prevent him get getting plenty of lateral movement and occasional awkward bounce. In 12 months time, when he completes his three year full-time residency in the UK, he will be available to play for England, nine years after playing three one-day internationals for Australia. It is not inconceivable he comes into Ashes contention, based on current form over the past couple of seasons for the series down under in 25/26 or at home in 2027. He was ably supported in this game by fellow seamers Roach, Atkinson and Clark, consigning leading wicket-taker Steel very much to the wings. He was also particularly ably supported by Ollie Pope in the slips, who took a Surrey all time record 8 catches in the match (where none are as a keeper or being taken off one's own bowling). It actually could have been 10, if he had pouched everything that went into his golden hands over the two innings. Of much more concern for the Surrey run-machine (and definitely against Hampshire at the Oval) in years gone by is the undeniable fact that since that brilliant 196, early in the India series, he has really struggled for form or a score of any size. 

Ali Orr, who has found the going tough so far since his South Coast move from Sussex to Hampshire, can very much empathise with that feeling currently. A big double century for his former county seems a good while ago now, although here he hit a couple of positive lofted drives for four which suggested this might be his day. He would have been very upset, therefore, at his tame dismissal for 26, clipping the ball off his legs straight to square-leg. Earlier, his opening partner and last week’s centurion, Fletcha Middleton, fell to the first of many a fine catch at slip by Pope off Worrall. James Vince nicked off to a rising ball from the impressive Worrall, before Prest went first ball to a fuller ball which he probably didn’t have to play. From 49-4, Hampshire never really recovered and, by the 45th over, they were already all out for 151. Surrey in reply were soon in very similar strife at 44-4, with Mohammed Abbas and Kyle Abbott very much back to their most dangerous best. For what turned out to be the only two hours in the whole match, Hampshire's experienced and skilful seamers then seriously threatened to put themselves on an even keel with the hosts. Sibley was playing down the Bakerloo line to an Abbott special - on the District and Circle - which removed the off stump. The corridor of uncertainty had an intensive interrogation with Pope playing on to Fuller and the imposing Jamie Smith also out bowled by Wheal. Only towards the end of the day did the batsmen finally start to look more settled: at one end, Ryan Patel played fluently before he was unlucky to be bowled by a Mohammad Abbas ball that shot through shin high, while at the other, Surrey captain Rory Burns, who has already been in good form so far this season, made 39 not out. From the point where nightwatchman Roach arrived at the end of Day One to the end of the game, Surrey never looked back.

On Day Two Roach ended up actually facing 96 balls for his 19, before the 6th wicket finally fell with Surrey now 35 ahead. Burns duly ploughed on, eventually making 113 off 256 balls. Jordan Clark, batting at 9, made a century in under 100 balls, leaving Hampshire over 200 behind on first innings. Sadly, we couldn't take the game deep into Day Four, as Worrall continued to torment us with figures of 25.2-4-47-5. If things couldn't seem to get any worse for Hampshire, they duly did with the announcement that the slow over rate deduction of 2 points, in an innings defeat, left us leaving the Oval with just one point. Flicking through my newly acquired 2024 Playfair Cricket Annual, I hastily asembled another Surrey XI of Jason Roy, Will Jacks, Laurie Evans, Ben Foakes, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Jamie Overton, Tom Lawes, Chris Jordan, Matt Dunn and Reece Topley. They are all currently on Surrey's staff and yet their depth of squad is such none were needed in this very one-sided game again for the home side. Indeed, for good measure and right on cue, England all-rounder Will Jacks smashed an unbeaten century off just 41 balls to help Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Gujarat Titans by nine wickets in the Indian Premier League, instead of playing at the Oval. Chasing 201 for victory, Jacks bludgeoned 10 sixes and five fours to help RCB reach their total with four overs to spare. Jacks hammered 28 runs off one Rashid Khan over, including four sixes, and shared an unbeaten 166-run stand with Virat Kohli. Kohli finished on 70 not out from 44 deliveries in RCB's 206-1. World's away is the phrase the comes to mind, when assessing Surrey's resources compared with all other counties in England, the money being splashed around in the IPL and, finally, on the field, scoring rates currently in the modern game compared to even the recent past. My trip to Kidderminster two days later was very much a step back in time - which is always welcome for a lover of county cricket! 

One final note to this Surrey v Hampshire game is exactly the one about scoring rates and batting tempo. One the way down on the train to the Oval, I read with great interest Laurence Booth’s editorial piece at the start of the 2024 Wisden. In his review of last summer, he wrote, “Ashes cricket has traditionally been a study in national stereotypes: Australia throw punches, England parry. But the roles were reversed last summer, and then some. As the two captains stood in the Oval sunshine at the end of a pulsating 2-2 draw, they personified the contrast: the matinee-idol clean shave of Pat Cummins, framed by his Baggy Green and cricket whites; and, beside him, beneath a bucket hat, the bearded Ben Stokes, tattooed biceps bulging from a blue gilet. England oozed rebellion, Australia convention.” As a clear admirer of the Bazball approach, he went on to reference England's approach to going 2-0 down in the series, " England’s elan made it all the more curious that some were waiting for Bazball to fail. Among Australians, whose team had never previously given up a 2–0 lead in 146 years of Test cricket, this was perhaps understandable. But the speed with which English critics pounced on Stokes’s declaration on the first evening at Edgbaston (a gesture in keeping with the approach that had brought 11 wins from 13 Tests), or their hook-happy collapse at Lord’s (they still reached stumps decently placed at 278 for four in reply to 416), reflected the conservatism that lurks close to the surface in this country. Ignoring the fact that England’s overnight improvement had intrinsic risk, these critics cried out for caution, apparently seeing in Bazball another piece of dumbing down, iconoclasm for the sake of it, even an act of cowardice, when application was the braver option. But Stokes and Brendon McCullum understood their players rather better. In the next three Tests, England scored faster than they had during the two defeats: 4.79 an over at Headingley, 5.49 at Old Trafford, 4.96 at The Oval. Previous England teams would have waved the white flag. This lot hoisted the skull and crossbones, and thank goodness for that.” 

I quote all of this because the sort of knock Burns played in this game is totally unlike anything Crawley, Duckett, Root and Brooks would ever serve up now for county or country. I am also a total convert of the way they play - particularly in terms of grabbing the public's interest in a crowded sporting calendar - but I also came way from the Oval wishing a Hampshire player had been able to do what Burns had done in this match. Pope in the field, Worrall with the ball, Clark with the bat were all Surrey contenders for man of the match; none in my view came close to Burns, who really wrestled the initiative away from Hampshire at 44-4. Whenever I see that gas holder in years to come, long after he has retired, the unconventional and ugly-looking Burns occupying the crease and somehow defying all the odds with his idiosyncratic movements will be there in the background symbolically taking another game away from Hampshire in Surrey's favour. Maybe all the new builds and flats around it will dwarf that iconic structure and Hampshire will move in as winning tenants at this grand old London venue in years to come. It is, after all, always good to dream! 

Week Seven: Tuesday 7th May 2024

So in the absence of any Hampshire game, the main focus was on the games at Taunton, where Somerset were hosting Essex, and Old Trafford where, depending on the bonus points and result, Kent and Lancashire could both move above Hampshire. This would leave us propping up the league already a quarter of the way through the County Championship season. The Somerset v Essex game was over in less than days and 37 wickets fell in the process. Out went Bashir before the game; out went the idea of any spin at all on a green top; out went every batsmen in the game for less than 43; out went Essex’s hopes ultimately of keeping pace with Surrey. In came Somerset’s fifth seamer instead of any spinner; in came Somerset’s renewed hopes of contesting for the championship with a second win of the season; in came a Bazball approach by the home team’s openers to win the game in the space of just 15 overs at the start of the fourth innings; in came surely interest from the pitch inspectors, who probably should have a second home in the beautiful Quantocks! After all the discussion in the media about the switch back away from the Kookaburra, much more interesting was the various dismissals attributed to Duke and Ball in this game. In Somerset's first innings, Jake Ball on debut was caught Harry Duke also on debut; then in Essex's second innings, Duke was caught Rew bowled Ball. The Lancashire v Kent ended in victory for Kent, where skipper Bell-Drummond guided his team home in another low-scoring game. Hampshire are left now ninth in the Division One Table after 4 games with 31 points. Lancashire are tenth with 27. 

Week Eight: Tuesday 14th May 2024

This week's entry begins with the very sudden and traumatic news about the shock death of 20-year-old Worcestershire spinner, Josh Baker. Before the county's game against Kent on Friday at Canterbury, there was a moment of silence followed by a minute's applause. All the Worcestershire players will wear his squad number, 33, under the club's crest on their shirts for the rest of the season. He was clearly a very popular player at the club and his tragic premature death in the middle of a second eleven game, in which he was playing, has met with universal grief in the cricketing fraternity. His beloved county did him proud on the field in the first game since the announcement of his death, with first innings hundreds for Gareth Roderick, Jason Holder and Matthew Waite. As stated previously in earlier entries for this journal, they are surely the county to admire this season  - above any other  - as they respond with great dignity and skill to all the many and varied challenges, both off and on the field. At the end of this current round of matches, they now sit above Kent, Hampshire and Lancashire at the foot the table. 

The runs were flowing on the south coast. Tom Prest scored his second championship century to add to Ali Orr’s hundred on the first day and Ben Brown’s 75th first-class fifty, as Hampshire piled on 503. Prest became Brydon Carse’s first scalp of the season after having gone for 285 runs without taking a wicket so far this year. The veteran Australian Peter Siddle finished with three wickets and the spinner Callum Parkinson bagged an expensive four-wicket haul. Hampshire's two centurions was the highlight at the Utilita Bowl in a dull high-scoring draw. Ali Orr made 126 off 211 balls - for his first of hopefully many tons for his new club - while Tom Prest impressed again; his 102 off 163 balls was also his first on his home ground. Durham's 432 all out in 148.5 overs, in response to Hampshire's 503 in 146.4, included a fine hundred by David Beddingham (144). Liam Dawson bowled 66 overs taking 5-184. At Canterbury, in the Worcestershire first innings, former Lancashire leg-spinner, Matt Parkinson, went for 201 off his 44 overs, while his twin, Callum, returned figures of 43-2-176-3 in the Hampshire game for Durham. Lancashire, meanwhile, stay bottom after their own former Test batsman Haseeb Hameed carried his bat for Notts at Trent Bridge, with 247* off 459 balls in Nottinghamshire's first innings 503 all out. Notts won easily by 9 wickets and he may yet come again for England. Surrey were also conclusive winners over Warwickshire by 9 wickets, with Jamie Smith furthering his England claims with another eye-catching 155 off 177 balls. 

The other big news for England this week is about the impending international retirement of another of Lancashire's sporting greats. Hyperbole are common place in sport's journalism, but superlatives are the only thing that are appropriate when references are made to James Anderson and his England career. At Old Trafford for the West Indies game in mid-August, when cricket will have to start moving into the slow lane to let the juggernaut of the new football season through, it will feel so strange to watch a Test Match where an England team finally (and terminally) has no Jimmy Anderson in it. The End named after him at the football ground end will have to serve as a permanent reminder of 700 Test wickets and a place on the top table amongst the greatest bowlers ever to aim at three stumps 22 yards away. As with Broad’s spectacular finale last summer, it brings home a feeling of ageing with both of them now moving onto pastures new. Both have been such a fundamental part of England’s success and continuity for so many years. 

Sir Alastair Cook wrote in the Sunday Times,  “I was unbelievably lucky as captain in that I knew that if I threw the ball to Jimmy or Stuart I would get consistency. They might not bowl their best spell, but they would be there or thereabouts and even if they didn’t get it quite right in the first spell they would in their second or third. There are so few great bowlers who have been both great wicket-taking bowlers and holding bowlers. That’s what Jimmy has given England and his captains.” As the attention quickly turns to who might succeed him longer term in the England red ball team, we are left with reflections about a unique professional athlete whose longevity was sans pareil in the modern era. Jonathan Agnew once put it, Anderson is “an anomaly amongst pacemen, a strange, brilliant glitch in the biomechanics machine [who] has kept going when the purring engines of even the greatest of his peers have long since petered out”.

Week Nine: Tuesday 21st May 2024

Still looking for the first win of the 2024 season, Hampshire's next fixture was at Trent Bridge. We have an excellent record against Nottinghamshire, winning eight of their last 11 matches, including both of last year’s encounters. Losing the toss and having to bat first, it was Nottinghamshire's all-rounder Lyndon James who rescued his side; he finished Day One at Trent Bridge on 92 not out  - leading a recovery for the home side after coming in at 50 for six - as they closed on 212 for nine on day one of their Vitality County Championship match against Hampshire. Mohammad Abbas, who took 15 wickets in the two matches between these counties last season, was the scourge of Nottinghamshire again with four for 36 - but Hampshire may yet rue their dropped catches as they look for a first win of their Division One campaign. James, eight away from a first hundred since September 2022, was dropped on 23 and 32 as Hampshire’s slip fielders suffered a day of contrasting fortunes, holding all three chances offered in the morning session but putting down three in the afternoon and another after tea. Nottinghamshire, who fielded the same XI that beat Lancashire to break their duck for the season last week, found themselves two down before they had scored a run as Abbas struck in the second and third overs of a new ball spell in which he did not concede a run until his 35th delivery.

Abbas, who was missing last week due to illness, had Ben Slater caught behind with a ball that nipped away late and dismissed Will Young with one that squared up the New Zealander and took the shoulder of the bat, looping to backward point. The Pakistan international took a breather after only six overs but there was scant respite for the home side, who were 17 for three when Joe Clarke edged to third slip off Kyle Abbott and 37 for four when left-armer Keith Barker - making his first appearance of the season - found some extra bounce from the Stuart Broad End and had Haseeb Hameed caught behind, a first dismissal in four innings for the Nottinghamshire captain. On a green-tinged pitch of somewhat mottled appearance, Hampshire’s decision to bowl first on winning the toss looked the right one. James Fuller got in on the act by uprooting Tom Moores’s leg stump with a big in-swinger before Abbas returned to grab a third scalp as Jack Haynes slashed at a ball outside off stump and was caught at first slip by a tumbling Tom Prest, whose non-appearance after lunch suggested he had injured himself badly in the process. With Nick Gubbins missing from the Hampshire line-up after becoming a father for the first time earlier this week, it meant Hampshire's batting would be light for the rest of the game.

As is so often the way now, it took the introduction of Liam Dawson’s left-arm spin to part the seventh-wicket pair when Harrison was bowled by a ball that skidded through low. After surviving his two scares, James dug in to reach his second half-century of the season off 135 balls with his fifth boundary, finding some dogged support from Stone, with whom he added another 59 before a slip catch finally stuck, Liam Dawson at second just about getting his fingers under a nick offered by Stone as Abbas, with the second new ball, took his fourth, before the day closed with Dillon Pennington leg before to Abbott.

On Day Two, Olly Stone pushed his claims for an England recall with his best Championship bowling figures in four years as Nottinghamshire and Hampshire reached the halfway stage of their Vitality County Championship match almost on level terms. Stone took four for 62 with new-ball partner Dillon Pennington backing him up with three for 70, yet after slipping to 77 for five with Tom Prest unable to bat after suffering an injury in the field, Hampshire rebuilt around a sixth-wicket stand of 157 between all-rounder Liam Dawson (95) and veteran seamer Keith Barker (74) to claim a first-innings lead of 41 at 276 all out.

By lunch, Hampshire were 61 for three as skipper James Vince, having taken advantage of Pennington’s struggle to find his early rhythm by hitting four boundaries in one over, got himself slightly squared up against Paterson and was caught behind. Middleton fell two overs after lunch with no addition, gloving a catch to Clark as he tried to evade a short delivery from Pennington, after which Stone returned to claim his third wicket as Ben Brown nudged one to third slip, leaving Hampshire five down for 77, still 158 behind. Yet thereafter the afternoon turned into a tale of frustration for the home side. After surviving what remained of Stone’s second impressive spell of the day, Dawson and Barker became more expansive, Barker riding his luck on several occasions as the ball flew in unpredictable directions off different parts of the bat. Barker took full advantage of his good fortune, twice whipping Pennington for sixes over the midwicket boundary and twice reverse sweeping Harrison’s leg-spin for four before Dawson, who had been circumspect initially, went after James with three boundaries in the same over.

The pair were parted soon after tea when Stone returned for a third spell, the England bowler angling one in from wide on the crease that beat Barker for pace, knocking back his off stump. James Fuller helped Dawson add another 36 before an uppercut off Pennington looped to sub fielder James Hayes at wide third man, after which the innings ended relatively quickly in the absence of Prest, with Abbott leg before to Harrison and Dawson departing with a near carbon copy of Fuller’s shot as Pennington picked up his third. Hameed was a second-ball casualty as Nottinghamshire began their second innings, edging a rashly extravagant drive to third slip off Barker, before Will Young and Ben Slater safely negotiated what remained of the 15 overs before the close.

Hampshire’s opportunity to notch a first win of the season is in the balance after a fast-moving third day of their Vitality County Championship match at Trent Bridge left them with still much work to do. Chasing a modest 169 to win, Hampshire ended the day still 85 runs away from their target at 84 for five and probably a man short unless Tom Prest can bat with the injured shoulder that has kept him off the field since tea on day one. Nottinghamshire had been bowled out for 209 in their second innings by tea, with veteran quick Kyle Abbott (3-41) and off-spinner Felix Organ (3-38) taking three wickets each after Joe Clarke and Jack Haynes had made half-centuries.

With Nick Gubbins missing the match on paternity leave and Prest unlikely to bat, it was never likely to be a straightforward task against the Nottinghamshire attack, even with 127 overs at their disposal. Knowing the potency of the new ball so far in this contest, Hampshire made no attempt to hurry yet still found themselves two down for 15 inside the first 10 overs, thanks to two superlative catches.

Nottinghamshire captain Haseeb Hameed took the first, plucking the ball out of the air one-handed at mid-on as Ali Orr mistimed his shot horribly against Pennington, who picked up his second wicket soon afterwards. This time Harrison produced the athleticism, using every inch of his 6ft 4ins plus a fully extended right arm to grab the ball a good eight feet off the ground. Organ, the man out, had aimed a rather wild slash at a ball wide of off stump but was nonplussed nonetheless that it had not cleared the cordon. It was enough for Nottinghamshire to sense an opportunity and they took full advantage of Hampshire’s frailty.

Skipper Vince, on whom much seemed to rest, fell for six, leg before to a full delivery from Paterson that he was trying to work to leg, Dawson hit James straight into the hands of short cover and Brown lost his off stump to a swinging delivery from Paterson, leaving Hampshire 44 for five and now facing a fight for survival. as Dillon Pennington (2-16) and Dane Paterson (2-19) led a determined effort with the ball by the home side, resistance finally came from Fletcha Middleton (33) and James Fuller (23) who saw out the final overs to calm their nerves.

Hampshire needed just 80 minutes of the final day to complete a five-wicket victory over Nottinghamshire in the Vitality County Championship at Trent Bridge. Fletcha Middleton and James Fuller build on the foundations laid on Sunday evening to compile an unbroken match-winning partnership of 127. All-rounder Fuller finished 77 not out with opener Middleton unbeaten on 59. It is Hampshire’s first win of the season but their ninth victory in the last 12 Championship matches between themselves and Nottinghamshire and their sixth in seven since they last suffered defeat in 2018 Hampshire finished just behind runners-up Essex in third place in last season’s Division One table but have been out of form so far and the 20 points picked up here will come as a relief in what may prove an unforgiving division this year.

Week Ten: Tuesday 28th May 2024

A truly remarkable win for Hampshire against league leaders and Champions Surrey. Capping an amazingly dominant and virtually perfect performance in every session over three days, spinners Felix Organ and Liam Dawson eventually tore through Surrey to hand the champions their largest-ever Vitality County Championship innings defeat and open up the title race. Off-spinner Organ claimed his third career five-for with leg-armer Dawson picking up four for 45 to give Hampshire an innings and 277 run victory, their first home win of the campaign, and their largest-ever victory. The margin of victory was one for the record books: Surrey's only heavier defeats in first-class cricket came in 1866 against England - a match in which WG Grace scored a double century - and in 1948 versus Don Bradman's Australians - both by an innings and 296 runs. It was only Surrey’s fourth defeat since the start of 2022 – with two of those coming after they had already secured their back-to-back crowns – with Essex and Somerset hot on their heels at the summit of Division One. In the end, Surrey were given a minimum of 172 overs to avoid an innings defeat, and got through to the 17th over unscathed on Day 3 but from then on wickets fell regularly and victory was wrapped up with a full day to spare.

On Day One, Kyle Abbott became the Utilita Bowl’s greatest-ever wicket-taker as Hampshire showed a chink in champions Surrey’s quest for a third straight Vitality County Championship crown. Pace bowler Abbott overtook Dimi Mascarenhas’ 186 scalps at the ground, when his predatory post-lunch spell of five for 25 put him on 188 home wickets since arriving in 2014. The South African was backed up by Liam Dawson’s three for 21 as Surrey were rolled for 127. A relatively even morning session was headlined by Dawson picking off Surrey’s distinguished top-order, after the visitors had chosen to bat first on a used pitch. The left-arm spinner entered the attack in the 10th over and stuck after just four deliveries, as Dom Sibley returned a simple caught and bowled. After a missed chance to stump Rory Burns, Ollie Pope attempted to pump Dawson over long-on but mistimed to Keith Barker at mid-on to hand the all-rounder his 300th first-class wicket for Hampshire. His 301st came soon after when Burns turned to short leg, before Jamie Smith ended the morning session by having his stumps rearranged by debutant Michael Neser – the Australian coming in for Mohammed Abbas, who has returned home.

The interval score of 89 for four slightly flattered the hosts, but when they returned, Abbott got his tail up and demolished the middle and lower order. All five of his wickets had come in a 34-ball burst before Neser rounded off the innings by pegging back Cam Steel’s off stump to end a Surrey collapse which had seen seven wickets fall for 38 runs. It was their lowest total since the last innings of last season – which came on this ground having secured the title the day before. The grey skies that had partnered Surrey’s innings were replaced by blue ones as Fletcha Middleton and Toby Albert – in for another back spasm victim Ali Orr – built a 51-run stand for the first wicket. The duo took little risk, with dot balls comprising of 85 per cent of their partnership, but were split when Middleton tickled a sweep shot behind to Smith – who had replaced Foakes behind the stumps. For Albert it was a contrast from the 51 off 33 balls and 86 off 31 balls he had scored earlier this week in T20 matches for the Second XI. In his first 100 balls he only scored 19 runs, and ended the day with a barely quicker 34 off 139 - having put on 51 with Nick Gubbins and Hampshire very handily placed on 102-1

On Day Two, homegrown batter Toby Albert took advantage of Ali Orr’s back problems to grind out a maiden ton on his sixth first-class appearance as he and Gubbins knocked up Hampshire’s highest second-wicket stand against Surrey. After their 201-run partnership had ended, Gubbins raised his bat for his second century of the campaign in his first innings since daughter Ottilie was born two weeks ago. James Vince, Ben Brown and Liam Dawson then all made half-centuries as Hampshire piled on 495 for four to boast a huge 368-run lead over the champions. Albert did nor give a chance in his century, which came in 280 deliveries, despite a strong Surrey attack bowling accurately, but ineffectually. He top-edged to fine-leg on 114 to end his mammoth innings and end a record alliance against Surrey – beating the 180 Roy Marshall and Henry Horton put on at the Oval in 1961. Once that milestone was hit the target for Hampshire was bonus points, which Vince’s aggressive approach was perfect for. He secured a second batting point with 40 in 37 balls, before heading to fifty in 49, as Hampshire cantered along stretching their lead. Brown and Dawson reached their half-centuries at a gallop during an unbroken 157-run partnership - with the former unbeaten on 99 overnight. 

On Day Three, Ben Brown duly carted the first ball of the day to the boundary to reach his 24th first-class century, and second since arriving from Sussex. It meant that Hampshire had three centurions in a single innings for the 14th time in their history, and first and Utilita Bowl. Hampshire were all-out attack to send their lead sky-high but it meant Liam Dawson tickled a ramp behind to end a 183-run stand with Brown – a county record for the fifth wicket against Surrey, to go alongside a record second wicket partnership earlier in the innings. Brown – who had played a number of outrageous short-arm jabs on the off and on sides, to and over the boundary – passed his highest first-class score to end 165 not out before James Vince declared with his side 481 runs ahead. Hampshire’s 608 for six declared was their 13th-largest total of all-time and the third-highest Championship score at the ground.

For the spin-fest that followed in Surrey's second innings, the first man to fall, Rory Burns, departed to pace as Keith Barker found the Surrey captain edging to first slip. From then on, it was Dawson piling in the pressure and Organ celebrating with his usual exuberance. Serial blocker Dom Sibley had navigated 85 deliveries before an inside edge onto his pad ballooned to silly mid-off, before Organ produced a wicked off-spinner to pin back Ollie Pope’s middle stump. Organ has history with Surrey. In 2019, on his fifth first-class appearance, he was forced into the attack due to unsuitable conditions for fast bowlers. The then-predominantly batter claimed five for 25 to secure a three-day victory. It began his mythologised bowling strike-rate for Hampshire, which currently stands at 46 and is the best of any other spinner in the club’s history – Shane Warne included. Jamie Smith was his next victim as a change-up delivery slid into middle and off stumps.

Dan Lawrence took a different approach from his defence-minded team-mates as he reverse swept his first ball to the boundary before switching to the opposite rope with a conventional sweep next delivery. His attacking got him up to 42, but saw his downfall when he chopped Organ onto his stumps. Having spent the best part of two days laying on the physio’s table with back spasms, Ben Foakes’ innings was heroic in his resolve. The England wicket-keeper faced 107 balls for his unbeaten 19. However, wickets continued to clatter, with Dawson now taking the limelight. Cam Steel was brilliantly caught at first slip by Vince after a deflection off Ben Brown’s gloves before Jordan Clark was yorked. Organ got his five-for when Sean Abbott chipped to mid on, before Dawson closed out Hampshire’s second win in a row by bowling Gus Atkinson around his legs and, after some slapping around, Dan Worrall skied for 48 - Surrey's highest score of the match. The visitors bowled out for 127 and 203 and a result that meant Hampshire climbed to 4th in the table with 85 points after 7 games. Leaders Surrey, who only took the one point from the game have 115 points, two head of Surrey and 16 ahead of Somerset.

Week Eleven: Tuesday 4th June 2024

The Vitality Blast started last Thursday and the T20 World Cup began on Sunday in America and the Caribbean. Hampshire lost to Surrey at home in the first game and beat Kent at home in the second. Both games went to the last over. In the opening game, it was England man Tom Curran who produced heroics with bat and ball to give Surrey another Vitality Blast Off victory over Hampshire Hawks; it was very small revenge for last weekend’s Vitality County Championship mauling at the same ground. Curran claimed three for 32 to peg the Hawks back and help restrict them to 162. His starring role, though, really came with the bat; he came in with 63 needed - with 38 balls remaining - to smash 37 off just 20 deliveries to see Surrey to a five-wicket victory at the Utilita Bowl. Earlier Ben McDermott, James Vince and Ali Orr had all departed within the first five overs as the Hawks struggled to 23 for three. However, the leading middle-order Blast run-scorer since 2021, Joe Weatherley, and in-form Toby Albert put the hosts back on track with a 62-run partnership off 41 balls. Hampshire’s 162 for nine represented a good recovery, and at the halfway point of Surrey’s chase, they were over a run behind the rate and had lost three of their premium batters. It was then that Curran arrived and tore up the win predictors with a strike-rate over 200 from almost ball one. His two sixes almost cleared the ground’s perimeter fences to take control of the chase in partnership with Jordan Clark. With six needed from the final over, Curran and Clark got their side over the line with four balls to spare.

Two days later at the Utilita Bowl, James Fuller, Benny Howell and Liam Dawson’s late sixes gave Hampshire Hawks a stunning comeback victory over Kent Spitfires to get their Vitality Blast campaign going. The Hawks required 42 off the last three overs, but three maximums in a row from Fuller turned the game before Howell and Dawson smashed over the ropes in clutch circumstances to win by three wickets. All-rounder Joey Evison picked up three for 31 – his second-best T20 figures – to put Kent in control before the late efforts handed Hampshire their first T20 win of the season.Daniel Bell-Drummond and Sam Billings’ 40s were the foundations for the Spitfires 165 for nine but it didn’t quite prove enough as Spitfires have one win and one loss so far. Chasing 166 to win, Ben McDermott and James Vince were circumspect, with barely a shot in anger during a 42-run powerplay, as timing became a struggle. The game was won and lost at the seath of the Hampshire innings with 42 still required, and Beyers Swanepoel bowling, Fuller bludgeoned to long on, straight then straight again for three sixes in a row - brining up a fifty stand with Weatherley. Even though the South African, who was playing club cricket for Elworth in the North Staffs and South Cheshire league last season, found an edge the following ball the momentum had defintely swung Hampshire's way, with 18 needed off the final two overs. Weatherley fell for a very well made 49 - when he picked out long on - but a Benny Howell six off the final ball of the penultimate proved vital. With nine now needed in the last, the previously expensive Grant Stewart had Howell caught, but was smashed over the ropes by Dawson, before a scampered single gave Hawks an unlikely victory.

In the opening game of the T20 World Cup, Aaron Jones clubbed a brutal unbeaten 94 as T20 World Cup co-hosts USA beat Canada by seven wickets in a pulsating and colourful tournament opener in Texas. The USA came into the match on the back of a 2-1 series win over Bangladesh and thrashed the Canadians 4-0 when the sides last met in April. This match was in the balance before Jones - born in Queens, New York to Barbadian parents – swung it the way of the home side with a stellar knock off 40 balls as they chased down Canada’s 194-5. As for England, they opened their campaign down in Barbados where the Bridgetown weather prevented a finish against Scotland. Only 10 overs were possible, but Scotland smashed 90-0 in that time. England faced a tricky revised target of 109 in ten overs, before the rain returned to prevent any reply. For the next month, it will be T20 Cricket at home and abroad, while competition for attention clashes with the Euros, which start in Germany at the back end of next week.

Week Twelve: Tuesday 11th June 2024

The Vitality Blast this week sees Hampshire mirror what they did last week, winning and losing a single game. For a second week in a row they played just under 80 overs of cricket, even though the hours of daylight are at their longest. It is no flaming June yet, though - neither here or in America and the West Indies where the T20 World Cup has thrown up shocks in the group stages. Hampshire won on the road on Friday at Bristol, where not for the first time in recent weeks Toby Albert played a leading role: he anchored Hampshire Hawks to an important five-wicket Vitality Blast win over South Group rivals Gloucestershire under the Seat Unique Stadium floodlights. On a used and challenging pitch, he top-scored with 41 not out from 32 balls and dominated a crucial, match-winning stand of 61 for the fifth wicket with James Fuller, who is following up his stellar year last year with another great all-round campaign in all formats. In front of a crowd approaching 4,000, Hampshire chased down a very modest victory target of 125 with 3.1 overs to spare. Gloucestershire's front-line left-arm seamer David Payne took 3-17 in his four overs to at least make a game of it, following a very disciplined and destructive performance from Hampshire's seam bowling unit. John Turner took 3-24 in 3.2 overs, while Chris Wood, Michael Neser and Fuller each took two wickets apiece when Gloucestershire were bowled out in 18.2 overs for just 124. It was a very different story on Sunday, however, against the reigning champions Somerset at Taunton. 

After winning the toss, Hampshire were blitzed on this relatively small ground by a Somerset record fourth-wicket partnership in this competition: Tom Abell and Sean Dickson smashed 144 in 11.2 overs to lead Somerset to a 63-run Vitality Blast win. Former captain Abell raced to an unbeaten 96 off just 47 balls, while Dickson hammered 65 off 32 deliveries to help the hosts post 241 for five. This was their third highest ever Vitality Blast total. The Hampshire bowling figures made tough reading, with John Turner's pace being exploited by the Somerset batsmen, who took 62 runs off his four wicketless overs. Ben Green then took five wickets for the hosts when Hampshire replied with 178 all out. Ben McDermott top-scored, hitting 46 off 28 balls and victory put T20 Cup holders Somerset back on track after successive group defeats on the road, while Hampshire sit seventh in the table because of their poor run rate. They are, though, only two points behind Somerset who are back top, but who have played a game more. It will be very tight again this year in the Southern Group where Middlesex and Gloucestershire are the only two teams from the nine who look out of contention to make the top four. 

Meanwhile in New York, the press reported on “one of the biggest shocks in cricket history”, when co-hosts USA beat Pakistan in a thrilling game on June 6. Left needing 7 from the last ball of the super over, Pakistan could only manage a single. For seasoned watchers of Pakistan at major tournaments, going right back to the first Prudential World Cup in 1975, many would argue - is this result really such a shock? They have it in their locker to lose to virtually anybody, but then turn up a day or two later and play like World Champions to slay the very best in white ball cricket. Pakistan, as a nation, has significant cricketing pedigree, including winning this tournament in 2009 and finishing runners-up in 2022. Tellingly, the New York Times the following day suggested that many Americans were still “oblivious to the magnitude” of the victory for the home side. For American cricket to catch on properly, following the momentous victory against Pakistan (and the preceding opening-game win against Canada), then the US game has to get past the continual negative comparisons with baseball. The traditional US diet, of course, of American Football, basketball and baseball is a difficult triumvirate to disturb, but the emergence of Major League Cricket (MLC) is at least hoping and daring to mount a challenge. 

Now in its second season, MLC has six franchise teams (with more planned) and is already attracting many of the world’s best male cricketers. Australia’s star internationals Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell and Steve Smith are all due to participate in this year’s tournament, which starts on July 5, with fellow countrymen Mitchell Marsh (the current T20 World Cup captain) and Marcus Stoinis highly likely to join them. Scheduling wise, there will be the clash with the Vitality Blast and then the Hundred in England. Could it be that the MLC’s ability to draw greater private investment – and the higher salaries that will inevitably follow – mean the American short-form game might prove more attractive to top players than the UK tournament? In the short term there are key issues to overcome: the US pitches being used for the World Cup, for example, are clearly substandard and thereby detract from the entertainment. The wickets used at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York have been bordering on dangerous, with a succession of low-scoring matches. That challenge pails into insignificance with that of drawing in paying spectators regularly to fill grounds in the MLC for an expectant tv audience which also doesn't properly exist yet. This World Cup is important for all ex-pat communities, as seen at the India v Pakistan fixture which could have sold out three times over. Of long term significance - just as with the Hundred in England - can young and old sports fans alike, who previously have not discovered cricket properly on tv, find an affinity for a franchise and begin to fall in love with cricket in its shortest form? Can both the women's and men's game see American teams competing regularly with home grown talent at future major tournaments to match the likes of Afghanistan? For us back in England, meanwhile, then only thing that matters currently is whether Australia will manufacture a situation whereby Scotland knock out England to shatter our latest "American Dream"?

Week Thirteen: Tuesday 18th June 2024

The Vitality Blast this week is a washout for Hampshire who don't get to face a ball out in the middle because both scheduled games are severely rain affected. Glamorgan away at Cardiff on Thursday was a game without a toss and no chance of any play, while the Middlesex game at home on Friday also produced a no result. Bottom of the table Middlesex did, though, have time to lose 8 wickets for just 113 runs in 16.5 overs before the heavens opened. James Fuller did what James Fuller does best, affecting the game in a positive way, before the abandonment on the fifth ball of his third over. He was left with figures of 2-11, eclipsing Turner's 2-29, in a Middlesex collapse which saw them subside from 86-3 to 113-8. All six bowlers each chipped in with a wicket and as the square quickly flooded under the severe downpour, it felt very much as if it was an easy point sacrificed to the weather against the consistently weakest team in the Southern Section. Earlier in the day  - in bright sunshine at the Utilita Bowl - the Southern Vipers won reasonably comfortably with seven balls to spare against the Northern Diamonds. Charlie Dean's 64 from 38 deliveries ultimately proved the difference in an unbroken 6th wicket stand of 79 with Georgia Elwiss. 

The theme this week continues about the ridiculously small amount of cricket being played both here in England and at the World Cup. The schedule (avoiding the sacrosanct window created for the IPL), formats being played (with the hegemony of T20 cricket), inclusivity (with the emerging nations at the WC) and the weather (rain, rain and yet more rain!) are all contributing factors  - or to blame depending on your point of view (penchant for the longer forms of the game). For the first time ever, England won a game of cricket in just 19 balls this week. This was in a game where Will Jacks faced 7 off them and made just 5! Salt, Buttler and Bairstow, meanwhile, faced the other 12 and smashed 44 between them to knock off the 48 needed for victory against Oman.  England's opponents were undone by the pace and bounce in Antigua, with Archer and Wood too hot to handle. England now needed to beat Namibia and the weather in Antigua in order to qualify for the next stage of the competition, while relying on Australia to beat Scotland. 

In the end all three of those things happened, but there was drama in the process in both games. Firstly, yet more rain meant the Namibia game was both delayed and then interrupted. Despite the scare, England won by 41 runs on DLS. Harry Brook was the star with 47 off 20 balls, batting at four, in England's total of 112 in their 10 overs. As for Scotland, they covered themselves in glory and lost heroically when Australia chased down 180 with just two balls to spare. George Munsey, who played for Hampshire in 2020, made 35 and has looked a fine T20 player, as has Brandon McMullen who made 60 off just 34 balls against an Australia team who were given by far their toughest game so far. Travis Head is very much their key batsman currently in this format. New Zealand and Pakistan are going home, while the US fight on.

Week Fourteen: Tuesday 25th June 2024

This week’s round up concludes with a new Hampshire record  - which has stood for nearly a hundred years against Warwickshire - in a dramatic game with a very tense finish at Edgbaston, but has to start in the County Championship with the 81 runs that came off two of England’s current Test squad bowlers. Yes, that is not a typo and it really was 81 that came off just two separate red ball overs at Worcester and then Hove this week! After a very encouraging debut series in Test cricket in India last winter, during which he claimed 17 wickets at 33 apiece in three appearances, Shoaib Bashir - out on loan at Worcestershire - conceded 38 runs in an over, the joint highest in championship history, on Sunday. Fellow England man, Dan Lawrence, in his first season for his new county, Surrey, struck the first five balls of Bashir’s over for sixes en route to an outstanding career-best 175 off 223 balls at Worcester. 

Bashir’s new unwanted record had previously stood on its own since 1998, when an over from Surrey’s Alex Tudor, which included two no-balls, went for 38 at Old Trafford. Lancashire’s Andrew Flintoff hit the fast bowler back then for five sixes and a four. Bashir’s over was likewise an eight-ball affair: it included a wide that went for four byes (counting as five against the bowler), as well as a no-ball, off which a single was taken (costing three runs). Unlike Tudor who waited 26 years to have his record eclipsed, both men have had that ignominy slightly reduced within a space of just two days as the bar has dramatically been lifted now to 43. The round fifty off an over may not be too far away!  Just to finish off on Flintoff for a moment, though, his son Rocky made 106 off 111 balls at Loughborough this week for England U19 - as a seventeen-year old - against a Young Lions International XI, for whom their top scorer with 83 was Archie Vaughan, son of Andrew Flintoff’s Ashes 2005 winning team-mate and captain Michael Vaughan.  

Back to the now magic number of 43, unless you are Sussex’s Ollie Robinson. In a terrific game at Hove, Leicestershire’s Louis Kimber rewrote the record books with a majestic innings of 243, including this extraordinary over in which he hit 37 as Robinson conceded a record 43 runs. It came on the final day when Leicestershire attempted to chase down the very improbable 464 against the Division Two League Leaders. Kimber accelerated from 72 to 109, courtesy of that assault on Robinson, and he went on to reach 200 in 100 balls, recording the fastest double hundred in the championship; it is also now the second-fastest in all first-class cricket. In this remarkable onslaught, Kimber also sailed past Ben Stokes’ record of 17 sixes - set in 2022 against Worcestershire - when he hit the most sixes in championship history. His new record stands on 21 maximums in the single innings. Kimber, who had previously only made just one century in first-class cricket, fell just short of dragging Leicestershire to an astonishing victory. Agonisingly, he was the last man out for 243 off 127 balls, bowled by Nathan McAndrew, as Sussex secured a narrow 18-run win to stay top of the table.

While all these fireworks were going off. Hampshire’s game went to the very last ball at Edgbaston, with Warwickshire hanging on for a draw nine down and still over 170 short of victory. Sam Hain made 111* and it was only his partnership with Michael Burgess (79) late on Day Four that gave Warwickshire the chance to frustrate Hampshire who had earlier claimed a 44 run first innings lead. In the visitors' second innings the record set was for 255 for the sixth wicket by two greats of the modern Hampshire era, James Vince and Liam Dawson. Vince  scored an unbeaten 166 off 197 balls, which was his 29th first-class century, while Dawson’s 120  from 157 balls, was his 15th. The previous record for the sixth wicket for Hampshire against Warwickshire in the County Championship had stood for 96 years. Two more Hampshire greats of the early 20th Century, Phil Mead and Jack Newman, had added 251 together at Bournemouth in a game Hampshire won by 8 wickets. 

Bringing this back to the current day and England are in the T20 World Cup Semi-Final and play India. The winners will play South Africa in the Final who hammered conquerors of Australia, Afghanistan, on a very poor pitch in Trinidad in their semi-final. My final thought is that none of the bowlers who have been struck for these huge amounts off a six red or white ball over are part time or even moderately good bowlers; when you think of Broad, Stokes, Nash, Tudor, Bashir and Robinson, they are all highly skilled operators from 22 yards with thousands of victims between them.  Over and out of the ground for another seven days!

Week Fifteen: Thursday 4th July 2024

What a week for the County Championship which had so many contenders for the champagne moment of the whole season.  Today is the General Election and the outcome is predicted to be a landslide victory. I will confidently predict that the forthcoming Hundred will not provide the same level as excitement - for most cricket lovers - that some of the final day finishes in both divisions of the Championship were able to provide yesterday. None of the games provided landslide victories; Hampshire's game against Kent at home was right in the balance, for example, until deep into the last hour with the weather closing in, at which point Liam Dawson quite typically these days days took matters into his own hands. He smashed an unbeaten 56 off just 28 balls, leading the final charge in Hampshire's successful run chase when needing 179 in 31 overs. Having earlier made Kent follow on, the visitors were finally dismissed just before tea on Day Four, largely thanks to Kyle Abbott's 5-89. After Toby Albert, Fletcha Middleton and then James Vince took Hampshire past 90 in the 12th over, it was Dawson's late assault which meant Hampshire romped home with 8 overs to spare.  It means they are 4th in the table, having won 3 of the last 4 games on 120 points, 8 behind Essex who lost to leaders Surrey at the Oval by 145 runs. Hampshire's victory was set up by captain James Vince, who starred in his second record partnership in the space of a week for his home county, when scoring his fourth double century for the club he continues to represent with true class and distinction in equal measure.

Somerset are now second on 134 points, 23 adrift of pace setters and firm favourites Surrey, thanks to a fine comeback and fourth innings chase at Taunton, ably led by former captain Tom. Abell's 152 not out off 207 balls was the backbone of Somerset's second highest ever chase in their history: they easily reached 413-5 in the 92nd over to win by 5 wickets in a game where they trailed on first innings by 128 runs. All of this was relatively sedate and run-of-the-mill compared with the other game just up the M5 at Cheltenham. If there is a more dramatic ball in red ball cricket this summer than the very last one of the Second Division match between Gloucestershire and Glamorgan, then we will all be reading about it in years to come.  The game ended in an epic last ball tie, but that tells less than half the story in another game for the annals at this wonderful festival on the old College ground. Set 593 to win by the home side, who declared on 610-5 when James Bracey went to his double hundred, Glamorgan came with a whisker of pulling off a world record. 

Hampshire's former players were at the centre of much of the final day spills and thrills for both teams. Sam Northeast led the way for Glamorgan with a marathon 187, while Mason Crane was left stranded on 43 not out at the end of a last over where the visitors required just 2 more for victory in their mammoth chase. Ajeet Singh Dale claimed the final wicket off the last ball in the most dramatic fashion possible with the scores level. His keeper, Bracey, bracing himself for a run out at his end, removed one of his keeping gloves prior to Dale's release from over the wicket. Glamorgan's Jamie McIlroy proceeded to nick the rising delivery towards first slip where Bracey moved across to hold on to a stunning catch in the hand without a glove. Cue the celebrations Imran Tahir style! It was Bracey's tenth catch in an unforgettable match for him and all who witnessed a truly momentous last day.

Talking of momentous and one man will not just lie down and rest. James Anderson’s return to action with figures of 16-3-35-7 at Southport, in Nottinghamshire’s first innings reply (to Lancashire’s 353 for 9 declared) of just 126 all out, will surprise nobody any more. Least of all, it will be no surprise to Nottinghamshire’s coach Peter Moores. Should we be surprised, though, that he is being moved on, still at the peak of his powers bowling in English conditions? Anderson, whose last competitive match was the fifth Test against India at Dharamsala in March, warmed up for his final Test next week - as if he had never been away - with the best figures in this season's County Championship! Having taken the first six wickets to fall in the innings at Trafalgar Road, the only real surprise is that his career-best figures are no more than 7 wickets in any innings. Jimmy has done for bowling in International Cricket what Mark Ramprakash did for batting at Surrey in the County Championship. They have simply mastered their art, towards the end of their long and distinguished careers, delivering performances and results at such a consistently high level that almost defies belief. 

Surrey’s Jamie Smith celebrated his elevation to the England side as a keeper/batsman this week with vital runs in both innings for leaders Surrey against second-placed Essex. His selection is one way to answer the enduring Foakes or Bairstow debate. He is more Bairstow than Foakes and certainly taller than both. If Bairstow is to be moved on now in all three formats, he can look back on a very proud England career where the highs have been truly memorable. Hampshire's keeper Ben Brown scored the 25th century of his career off 183 balls in his fourth-wicket partnership of 259 with James Vince in the Kent game. They went past the previous record of 254, set on the same ground by Michael Carberry and Neil McKenzie 14 years ago. The imperious Vince advanced to a chanceless 211, before he was finally dismissed. He is in majestic form again currently. His innings, which contained 33 boundaries, mainly through an area between backward point and extra cover off all the bowlers, provided the perfect entertainment for all the former players attending the annual lunch in the Hampshire Suite at the Utilita Bowl. His off-side play always looks so graceful and effortless, evoking memories of Trevor Jesty who was present on the ground along with John Rice, Andy Murtagh, Bob Herman, Mike Taylor and Bob Stephenson from the Hampshire side of exactly 50 years ago, who came so close to retaining their County Championship crown that rain-soaked summer.

Week Sixteen: Wednesday 10th July 2024

Hampshire have only had two T20 games this week and one of them was again washed out at Radlett. It means three T20 games have seen a no result in recent weeks; the only actual result of that being that qualification for the latter stages of the Vitality Blast now looks increasingly unlikely for the 2022 Champions. Tonight is the South Coast derby at Hove and after that there are four fixtures still left to play for Hampshire in the Southern Section. The loss by 22 runs to Sussex means they, rather than Hampshire, are now very likely to qualify with Surrey. Otherwise, there is only one place to focus on in the cricketing world this week and that is with the 188th and final Test appearance at the Home of Cricket of James Anderson. In stark contrast to Stuart Broad's retirement in the final game of the Ashes last summer or Sir Alastair Cook's final game at the Oval almost six years ago now in 2018, Jimmy is reluctantly leaving centre stage and being asked to do so right at the start of the international summer. Coach Brendan McCullum and captain Ben Stokes wisely need to build for the future and, more specifically, for the Ashes in 2025/26. However, there is no doubt that Jimmy would sail past Shane Warne's finally tally of 708 Test wickets - to sit second in the all-time Test Wickets list behind Murali - if he had been given all six Tests this summer with the traditional Oval finale. In the continuing absence of Archer, Jimmy deserves his place on merit. However, the non-selection of Bairstow and Leach, coupled with Anderson's finale means the door is well and truly open for some talented newcomers to make their mark in this England Test team this summer.

Ahead of the Test with all the talk about Jimmy needing 8 wickets to draw level with Shane Warne, I put together my joint Hampshire and Lancashire XI of the past 50 years. For my first draft, Jimmy didn't even make the cut. Richards, Greenidge, Engineer, Lloyd, Flintoff, Wasim, Marshall, Warne, Holding, Roberts and Murali were the eleven. Imagine captaining that bowling attack and, if Jimmy is in the side, who would have to be left out? That team would certainly be box office to watch in all formats, even though on paper there are only three specialist batsmen. I think they would also be too strong for any other combined county XI, although Somerset's plethora of world class batters, allied with one other county's star bowlers might give them a very good game over 5 "Tests". Surrey, Middlesex or Sussex might be a good option in that regard. Where there can be no dispute is that Jimmy would lead the attack for an imaginary all time England XI. The tributes have quite rightly been fulsome this week about his longevity, adaptability, dedication, fitness, skill, control and value to every England team he has played in since his Test debut way back in May 2003 at Lord's against Zimbabwe.

Michael Atherton in his article in the Times on the first day of the First Test referred to Anderson as among the last of his kind, because when he started T20 didn’t exist, nor did the Indian Premier League. He is a cricketer of a certain time and type, only ever having played for one club and his country. He clearly loves Test cricket beyond any shorter form of the game, despite - or maybe because of - all the graft and grind, and the many lessons learnt. As things currently stand, there won’t be many, if any, like this to follow. Atherton concludes, "What an example he has set: always curious; always learning; always improving, age just a number. Now here we are. He geared up for his farewell Test, engine oiled and purring, with a seven-wicket haul against Nottinghamshire at Southport that was as good as anything he has produced for Lancashire, hitting the crease and the pitch hard, accurate and incisive as ever. Perfect endings in sport are rare. Broad delivered one last summer, with a wicket and a six off the final ball bowled and hit, and a victory over Australia at the Oval. Anderson cannot match that, but going past Shane Warne — he needs nine more wickets to do that — leaving only Muttiah Muralitharan ahead of him, would be his equivalent. What a cricketer. Catch him while you can!"

At the end of the First Day at Lord's West Indies have been bowled out for just 121, with Anderson only able to grab the final wicket. That is because he is upstaged by Surrey's Gus Atkinson. On debut at the age of 26, he dismisses the first six West Indian batters and has a chance of becoming the first player ever to take 8 wickets in their first game in Test cricket. With three wickets in four balls, he eventually finishes with 7-45: this places him third in the all-time list of England bowlers on debut for England, just behind Lancashire and Hampshire's Dominic Cork, who took 7-43 against the same opposition on the same ground in 1995. Atkinson definitely looks quicker than Cork was, but is still able to swing the ball like the former Derbyshire man. As an audition for replacing Broad or Anderson, Atkinson certainly did not fluff any of his lines. England were excellent in the field for the first day of the International summer, which saw Stokes also bowling injury free in a four-man pace attack. It is an attack which next week will take to the field without their venerable number nine at Trent Bridge for the Second Test. They should retire Anderson's number with him and it can only be months before a knighthood surely follows.

Week Seventeen: Tuesday 16th July 2024

Hampshire have to accept that, unusually, T20 Finals Day at Edgbaston in mid-September will take place without them lining up in either semi-final. They did this week, though, record their most thrilling win of the season in the Southern Group at home to Gloucestershire, thanks in the main to a player who has been a key player for both teams in this format of the game. Having taken 2-28 in his 4 overs of the Gloucestershire's innings of 176-9, Benny Howell then rescued Hampshire with a truly remarkable 62*, off just 27 balls, to see the home side over the line in a nail-biting finale. He smashed four sixes and seven fours, including one off the last ball of the game to help Hampshire record a famous win. A heavy defeat against Somerset by nine wickets on Sunday, however, meant this year's qualifying campaign has been one of the least impressive in modern times. A lack of runs at the top of the order has been one of the key factors in that being the case. The weather has not helped either.

On a far sadder note, the death of former Hampshire opening batter Barry Reed has been reported at the age of 86. He was a stalwart of the 1968 side featured in this Journal, playing in 30 of the 32 first-class matches and being one of only three batsmen to score a thousand runs that season. He had, in fact, achieved that feat for the third time, after doing likewise in 1966 and 1967. In his career between 1958 and 1970, Barry scored 4910 runs in 213 innings as an opener. His two partners doing that job were invariably Roy Marshall and Barry Richards; he lost his place eventually to Gordon Greenidge. The privilege and honour of being mentioned in the same sentence as all three of those men was not lost on him. My clear memories of him as a man and coach, when I was lucky enough to be part of the Hampshire Under 19 side in 1981, was somebody who was so proud to be able to pass on his love of the technical side of batting; his genuine pride and affection representing his home county shone through at all times. He never ever referenced his own achievements, but commanded respect for his quiet authority and humility. Two of our matches were at Winchester College which was his alma mater, but he could not have been more encouraging for youngsters like John Ayling from Portsmouth, having been born himself in Southsea. Along with Pop Marshall and Jimmy Gray, Barry instilled the values of the game to so many young players who went on to have great careers in the game. He averaged just under 25 across his first-class career, with a top score of 104 against Glamorgan in the Championship at Portsmouth in 1967 - which must have been so special for him - before then making his career best score of 134 in 1970, with his only other century in the first-class game, at the Parks against Oxford University in his last season in the first team. Following the very sad and premature death of Geoff Keith in 1976, Barry took over as captain of the 2nd XI for a while. He always wanted to help his county club, which he played for and served in so many capacities with such great distinction. 

My own week started with a trip to Lord's for the second day of the Test and the very last chance to watch James Anderson in international action. The crowd were all decked out in red in support for the Ruth Strauss Foundation. Andrew Strauss has worked tirelessly in her memory for this charity. He retired 12 years ago now, but what is truly remarkable about that is the fact, despite playing more than a hundred Tests, he actually made his debut in the England side after James Anderson won his first cap.  Rather poignantly, Anderson was upstaged in this latest game by Gus Atkinson on debut who took 12-106. He did, though, have one perfect moment on the third and final morning of a very one-sided contest: bowling from the Nursery End, he delivered the perfect outswinger, which shaped through the air and then just went down the slope to nick off a helpless Josh Da Silva. It was a ball which was still good enough to get out any high-class batsman. His statistics for England in Test Cricket eventualy finished on 40,037 balls bowled, with a staggering 704 wickets taken at 26.45. He sits third in the all-time list of Test bowlers, behind Murali and Warne, as the leading paceman in the history of Test Cricket, with a very good chance nobody will get anywhere close to that number in the future. The emotion for him and from him at the Home of Cricket made it a very special occasion to attend for every spectator lucky enough to be there for any of those three days of the First Test. 

It is only to be hoped it is a far more keenly-contested second game in this three match series up at Nottingham next week for the start of the post Anderson and Broad era. Test Cricket needs a West Indies side that can compete at home and abroad more than ever. In order to do that, the big three need to help out far more financially for a proud cricket team who looked a very pale shadow of the great West Indies' teams of the past here at Lord's this week. it will be fifty years ago next year since they won the first Prudential World Cup on this ground and at least three members of that truly amazing side were in attendance for Anderson's final Test. It must be so disheartening for Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards to sit there and watch the ongoing decline of the longer format of the game in the West Indies. Unless there are financial incentives and a proper infrastructure to develop future generations to play Test Cricket in the Caribbean, then they will only slip further and further behind India, Australia and England. How can anyone running the game around the world, if they have any feel for cricket's DNA and unique heritage, continue to allow that to happen?