From The Archive: Hampshire v Sussex

Part One

During the late 1950s, English cricket authorities discussed a knock-out competition as a way of arresting falling attendances, and in 1963 the 65-over Gillette Cup was launched; reduced to 60-overs from the following year. It was a success but too many teams were knocked out early, playing just one or two matches, so in 1969 the counties added a 16-game league, played on Sunday afternoons and broadcast on BBC2

In 1972 came a new part-league, part knock-out competition, the B&H Cup and over the next thirty years these competitions built a new generation of cricket followers, despite considerable tinkering with formats and lengths. There were however still concerns about attendances and particularly about attracting younger fans, so in 1998 counties were asked to consider the shortest format yet, very similar to the evening leagues many club cricketers had played for years.

The counties were not keen initially, but were persuaded and in 2003 the new Twenty-20 (T20) competition was launched in England & Wales on Friday 13 June. It’s often suggested that the inaugural match was at the Rose Bowl but while it is true that Hampshire’s game v Sussex was the first English T20 match to be televised, five games were played that day from the three groups, north, midlands and south.

2003 was a very difficult year for Hampshire with little success but they at least won this first-ever T20 match in a tight finish. I wonder how many of that side you might remember 16 years later? The opening batsmen Derek Kenway and James Hamblin took Hampshire to 66 before the first wicket fell and they were eventually dismissed with two balls remaining for 153. Our captain John Crawley was undefeated on 20* and with a hint of things to come, the Sussex off-spinner Mark Davis took 3-13 in three overs.

Wasim Akram and Ed Giddins opened the bowling for Hampshire and Wasim had two wickets as we reduced Sussex to 27-3, although Robin Martin-Jenkins and wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose kept Sussex on course, with Ambrose (54*) completing the first half-century in a Hampshire game. In the next match (v Kent) Simon Katich scored our first fifty. Elsewhere on this first day, Mike Hussey (Notts) was top-scorer with 67 and James Ormond (Surrey) the first bowler to take five wickets in an innings.

Sussex needed 22 from the last two overs and nine from the last, bowled by Ed Giddins. He had few significant moments in a very brief Hampshire career but he took the wicket of Mustaq Ahmed with the third ball and Sussex ended six runs short of victory. Our Handbook reported an attendance of 9,000, adding that about half of them stayed to watch a performance by ‘girl group’ Mis-Teeq. For the players, there were just four more games that year - sadly Hampshire lost all four.

Part Two

Since the competition began in 2003, the qualifying rounds of the T20 have been regionalised in different ways; as a consequence, we have met Sussex every year, often twice, while we have only played once against Derbyshire, Durham, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Yorkshire, and there is one side we have never met (answer below).

We have been scheduled to meet Sussex on 30 occasions although four never started and one more was abandoned; at present, we lead them with 15 wins against their ten and there have been some cracking games since we met on the first-ever T20 day in June 2003. We have even won eight to their four at Hove and the first one was extraordinary as we won by three wickets with just one over to spare, despite chasing a winning total of only 68. This was after Dimi Mascarenhas took 5-14 including our first and only T20 hat-trick – and it remains Hampshire best bowling performance in any T20 innings. Chris Adams with 37* scored more than half the Sussex runs, while no one reached 20 for Hampshire, as James KIrtley took 2-8 in his four overs.

Dimi was to the fore again at the Rose Bowl in 2006 when his four wickets enabled us to defend 112-5, but the games have not always been low-scoring – in the following year Luke Wright’s 98 took Sussex to a winning 205-5, and in 2008 at Hove they posted one fewer but we got them from the final ball thanks mainly to Carberry’s half-century.

At the Rose Bowl in 2008 & 2009 both sides secured one victory by nine wickets, and in the first of those, Sussex got there in fewer than 10 overs, while Chris Liddle’s 4-17 are the best Sussex figures in this fixture, although England’s new ‘star’ Jofra Archer took 4-18 in the 2017 fixture, won easily by Sussex after Alsop’s 64 was more than 50% of Hampshire’s score. Back in 2011, a couple of promising youngsters, James Vince with 85* and Danny Briggs 4-17, took us to victory by 112 runs at Hove – this year they will probably face each other. Around those years, with Hampshire Champions in 2010 & 2012, Neil McKenzie was one of our most consistent batsmen, but no one has ever reached three figures for Hampshire in this fixture – James Vince’s 90* at Hove four years ago is the highest. For Sussex, at the The Ageas Bowl in 2014, Luke Wright added 116* to that previous 98, and that is the highest score against Hampshire by any batsman for any side.

Hampshire have twice passed 200 against Sussex, both at Hove, in 2008 & 2015, while Sussex have reached 200 on four occasions in 2007, 2008, 2012 & 2015. Last year, not a happy one for Hampshire, Sussex won by eight wickets at the The Ageas Bowl with Luke Wright featuring again with 68, while the return at Hove never started thanks to the weather. Let us hope for sunshine and a better result for Hampshire this year!

The only side we have never met in the T20? Leicestershire

Dave Allen