Dave Allen: Knock Out Cups v Glamorgan

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.

This year, Hampshire meet the Royal London Cup holders Glamorgan at Neath, their first-ever visit to this venue in any List A competition – indeed we have only played there three times in the Championship and one of those in 1969 lasted just 55 overs in the rain.

Overall we have played 66 league and cup List A matches against the Welsh county, winning 38 and losing 27. In the knock-out cups we met them first in the Gillette Cup at Portsmouth in 1967 where our 236-7 (Roy Marshall 61) gave us victory by 16 runs. In the 1970s we played them regularly in the West Group of the new B&H Cup, losing first at Bournemouth in 1972, 87 from Roy Fredericks took them to a 33 runs victory, then the following year at Swansea our Championship winners lost by the considerable margin of 92 runs (Tony Cordle 4-14). We had our revenge at Southampton in 1974 thanks to 4-26 from Andy Roberts plus 60s by Richards & Gilliat. In 1975 at Swansea again, we won by six wickets then in mid-July they came to Southampton where the game was virtually over before the first wicket fell. Greenidge scored 177, Richards 129, they were parted at 210 and Hampshire posted 371-4 which remained our record total until our recent visit to Beckenham.

Back to the B& H Cup, we won in 1977, 1985 (Greenidge 99) and 1988 (by 10 wickets) while they won in 1978 and 1989 – the latter by 8 wickets despite 155* from Robin Smith (Hugh Morris 143*). We also beat them in the Nat West Trophy in 1981, 1983 (Greenidge 108) & 1989 (Maru 1-19 in 12 overs). Into the 1990s, Chris Smith with 142 helped us to a B&H group victory at Southampton in 1991, but 83 from brother Robin four years later was not enough to avoid a seven-wicket defeat. He went beyond that, scoring 119 in the Nat West at Southampton in 1997 but Glamorgan won again.

Even with Shane Warne, we started the new millennium in some disarray, bowled out for 69 in a heavy defeat at Cardiff but a six-wicket win there in 2005 set us on our way towards the first trophy in 13 years (Ervine 5-50, Pothas 114) and we repeated the result one year later by a margin of 165 runs with James Tomlinson on a rare List A appearance, taking 4-47. In 2007 & 2008 we won the two FP Trophy matches that avoided the rain, then in 2012 on our way again to Lord’s and the trophy, we won both fixtures in the CB40 - Vince 83, McKenzie 88, Wood 5-22.

In 2013 we met them at the The Ageas Bowl in a semi-final which, by virtue of their victory was ‘Dimi’ Mascarenhas’ final game for Hampshire. In recent years we played them in four consecutive seasons in the Royal London Cup, winning by 186 runs in 2016 (Dawson 100 plus four wickets each for McLaren & Berg) then lost by three wickets after posting 332-6 (Vince 178) thanks to Ingram’s century. Our four wicket win at Swansea in 2018 (Crane 4-46) was another on our journey to a Lord’s trophy - something Glamorgan have never managed - and while our seven-wicket win the following year (Alsop 130*) also helped us to the Final, we lost that to Somerset. This year we meet them seeking our 14^th consecutive victory in a competitive match which is already and by some margin, a club record.