Dave Allen: Knock Out Cups v Essex

2022 is the 60^th season of single innings, limited-overs matches between first-class counties. Over those years the matches, always scheduled for one day but sometimes extended or shortened by weather, have been contested over various formats with overs consisting of 65, 60, 55, 50, 45 or 40 per side. They were the first regular county competitions to carry the names of sponsors of which there have been many. Despite all these variations the matches are together known as List A to distinguish them from first-class or Twenty 20 games.

Hampshire and Essex have met in 71 List A league and cup matches, with Hampshire having slightly the better record, winning 35 to 33 of those that were completed. From 1969, we played them 13 times in the Sunday League before the first knock-out meeting which was in 1982 in the B& H Cup at Chelmsford. It was a thriller won by Essex by one wicket; they chased a small target of 131 reaching it with nine balls to spare, after Essex recovered from 52-7 (Turner 55*) despite Kevin Emery’s 5-25. Those figures were our best ever v Essex, equalled by Steven Andrew in the B&H Cup at Chelmsford in 1987, when Essex were 100 all out (from 39-8) losing by 86 runs.

Two years before that latter game we suffered a frustrating Nat West semi-final defeat at Southampton when Essex on 224-7 equalled our score but went through on the second day by virtue of losing one fewer wicket. Only Graham Gooch reached 40 in the match but his 93* was despite strong claims for a run-out supported by photographic and TV evidence. Back then it felt sometimes as though Hampshire would never reach a Lord’s Final but three years later they turned the tables in a two-day game at Chelmsford in the B&H Cup. We restricted Essex to 238-6 (Cowley 2-31) and although closing the day on 192-1, we knew their run-rate was better; we needed to win and on the second day we did so with eight balls to spare, thanks mainly to 109 by Paul Terry. A few weeks later we won our first Lord’s Final.

A century by Gooch at Chelmsford won another B&H match in 1989 but in 1990 we reversed the 1985 result, winning there in the Nat West by losing fewer wickets (5/6) despite 144 from Gooch. For Hampshire, Chris Smith’s 106 was decisive. In 1991 we lost a B&H quarter-final at Chelmsford when chasing 224 to win, we fell from 142-2 (Chris Smith 71) to 191 all out. We won a rain-shortened B&H quarter-final there in 1994, while another Gooch century in 1995 was negated by an abandoned game.

We kept meeting them: in 1996 they came to Southampton, winning a Nat West quarter-final by 100 runs, while two years later Cardigan Connor’s 4-13 helped dismiss them for 129 which we passed losing seven wickets. There was a five-wicket Hampshire victory at Chelmsford in 2000 and a scheduled B&H game at the brand new Rose Bowl on 2 May 2001 – our first ever competitive match there - which never started. We lost another damp (D/L) game away in 2002, while in 2006 we recovered from 12-4 (Pietersen 98) to win a C&G home game by just 8 runs. Our heavy defeat at Chelmsford the following year did not stop us reaching the FP Trophy Final, then in 2013 a magnificent 129* by James Vince gave us a nine-wicket win. One year later, in the RL Cup, Adam Wheater, once of Essex, scored 135 from 97 balls – our best against Essex - but 319-9 was not enough; we lost by 5 runs.

Apart from the Covid cancellation in 2020, We have played them every year since then in the Royal London Cup, losing all but one. In 2019 their winning score of 341-6 was their best-ever against us but in 2018, on our way to the Trophy, we beat them by six wickets at The Ageas Bowl with a century by Rilee Rossouw, which he repeated at Lord’s later that season.