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Club historian Dave Allen has taken a look back at previous List A clashes with Worcestershire Rapids ahead of Friday's Royal London Cup opener
2022 is the 60th 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 have played Worcestershire in 50 List A matches of which 11 have been in the knock-out cups, some straight knock-out, others like this year in a qualifying group preceding the knock-out stages. Of those 11 matches Hampshire have won four and lost seven although they were successful last year, winning the match at The Ageas Bowl with Kyle Abbott’s 5-43 Hampshire’s best knock-out analysis v Worcestershire.
Their first meeting in 1966 was less successful. Hampshire reached their first semi-final, with Worcestershire at home where a century by Martin Horton enabled them to post 253-4 in their 60 overs; back then a good score – even though Derek Shackleton took 1-21 in his 12 overs. Roy Marshall and Barry Reed started with an opening partnership of 59 but Hampshire fell to defeat by 99 runs – they would not win a semi-final for another 22 years.
In 1978 Andy Roberts (3-21) and David Turner (66*) took Hampshire to a 55-overs B&H Cup victory but eight years later Worcestershire came to Southampton and won a 60-overs NatWest Trophy game by 66 runs. In 1988 Hampshire had their revenge after a rained-off first day, winning at Worcester on their way to that first Cup Final. Steven Jefferies, a hero of that campaign took 4-34 and Robin Smith’s 87* ensured victory by three wickets. Having won at Lord’s they returned to Worcester later that year to lose a NatWest semi-final by 29 runs (Paul Terry 80). There was another semi-final defeat in the B&H Cup at Worcester in 1994, despite Robin Smith’s 108 and 4-36 by Norman Cowans.
Robin Smith was fond of the Worcestershire bowlers and in July 1996 Hampshire’s 328-6 in a NatWest game (60 overs) featured Smith with 158 – our highest knock-out innings against them - and Jason Laney 82. Together they added 179 for the 2nd wicket, a record partnership v Worcestershire and our victory by 125 runs remains our largest against them.
In 2008 and 2009 we played them home-and-away in the Friends Provident Trophy. In the first year it was one-all, with an unbeaten partnership of 137* by Michael Brown & Dimi Mascarenhas taking us from 65-6 to victory and a record List A 7th wicket stand for Hampshire. In April 2009 they scored 320-8 with Moeen Ali’s their highest innings against us and Gareth Batty took 5-35 so despite John Crawley’s century we lost by 53 runs. One month later we lost again at Worcester with their 108 runs victory our heaviest defeat against them.
Since 2009 there have been just three scheduled RL Cup meetings with Worcestershire before this year, but they included a No Result in 2014, the COVID-19 cancellation of the competition in 2020 before last year’s victory.
Tickets for Hampshire’s home match against Worcestershire are available via the link below, while they’ll also be available on the gate from 9:30am on Friday.
Click here to buy tickets – available at the discounted Advance rate until 11:59pm on Thursday.
