Dave Allen: Knock Out Cups v Lancashire

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.

Since 1963 Lancashire have at various times been known as the ‘One Day Kings’ of county cricket. Initially they won cups and leagues in 1969, 1970 (two), 1971, 1972, and 1975 and our first knock-out cup meeting in those days came at Old Trafford in a 1970 Gillette Cup quarter-final. West Indians Roy Marshall and Danny Livingstone added 72 for the fourth wicket and Alan Castell and ‘Butch’ White 45 for the 10^th which sounds satisfactory except that no one else reached more than six and Lancashire passed our target for five wickets with almost 25 overs to spare.

They beat us again in a quarter-final at Bournemouth in 1972 despite a terrific century by Barry Richards (129) and at the same stage again in 1975 when Wood and Ratcliffe took four wickets each, bowling us out for 98 and winning by six wickets in the 32^nd over. Then at last, the following year, we won a B&H game as Richards (80) was the star again. We won one further B&H game each in the late 1970s, while 82* from Clive Lloyd was too good for us in the 1981 Nat West.

We had a bizarre encounter in the B&H in 1990. On the first day, they posted 352-6 from 55 overs – still the third highest against us - and we reached 35-1 before the Manchester rain took over. With weather intervening again on the second day, the umpires cancelled the first game and scheduled a second 18-overs encounter; Lancashire recovering from 23-4 to 147-5. We reached 99-1 before the weather took a hand again and the match was abandoned.

In 1991, on our way to the Nat West Trophy we beat them in the 2^nd Round at Southampton, chasing down their score of 261 for the loss of just two wickets with six overs and a ball to spare (Robin Smith 79*, Chris Smith 66, Gower 54,). It was perhaps, suddenly, a good omen as we won at Old Trafford the next year and went on to win the B&H Cup (Robin Smith 109, Marshall 3-28. 

In 1998 they came to Southampton for a Nat West semi-final and having scored 252, reduced us to 28-5 before a rally by Mascarenhas (73 & 3-28) and James (52) gave us hope. It was not to be and Lancashire went on to win the trophy. We had another go the following year and despite a century opening stand by Laney (93) and Kenway (53) we lost by one wicket with three balls to spare as number nine, Peter Martin, hit 31* from 36 balls.

After 17 years of disappointments we won an Old Trafford FPT semi-final in 2009. Adams (78) and Lumb (76) opened with 159 and they never challenged our 271, falling to defeat by 64 runs (Tahir 3-38) – we then won the Final against Sussex. We have met them regularly in the Royal London Cup in recent years, winning by 148 runs in 2014 (Maxwell 146), losing by 29 runs the following year and beating them by four wickets at home in 2019 on our way to another final – Gareth Berg took 5-26, Rilee Rossouw hit 85 and James Vince 79. Of our team that day, only Aneurin Donald is likely to appear this year.