From The Archive: It's A Knockout

Having reached the last two RLC Cup Finals, defeat in the opening game v Essex was obviously disappointing, except that we went into the game missing six first-choice recruits to the Hundred, while our opponents lost just two.

The plus side was an opportunity to enjoy a good white-ball debut by our new recruit Nick Gubbins plus a first limited-overs sight of our youngsters, of whom, John Turner impressed with his pace and a memorable first-wicket, Scott Currie continued to dismiss batsmen and Tom Scriven started with what must surely be a new white-ball record: five runs from his first scoring shot and six from the next. If you know better let me know!

It led me to wonder that about that favourite followers’ game – a ‘Best Ever XI’ although in this case I’ve set myself the limit of choosing a limited-overs (or List A, but not T20) side consisting only of ‘our own’ players. To qualify anyone selected had to come through our junior and/or 2^nd XI sides, although while being born in Hampshire is an asset it’s not essential. I’ve also decided to omit for now any current players, clearly Vince, Dawson, Wood and McManus are strong contenders.

I begin, at the very beginning, Wednesday 22 May 1963 and our very first Gillette Cup match against Derbyshire at Bournemouth which, after 65-overs per side (yes, 65) we lost by just six runs, when Portsmouth-born Mike Barnard was bowled by Edwin Smith for 98 from the third ball of the final over. Surprisingly in his brief time as a limited-overs batsmen, Mike had a better average than the legendary Roy Marshall and continued to hold catches for fun.

He is definitely a candidate, so too his team-mate in the Champions of 1961, Southampton’s Peter Sainsbury, who averaged around 20 in his 165 matches and also took 202 wickets. His 7-30 v Norfolk (including Henry Blofeld and Bill Edrich) in 1965 remains Hampshire’s best-ever.

‘Sains’ bowls left-arm and we might like someone to bat the ‘wrong way’ too which takes us to the little left-hander and fine outfielder David Turner from Wiltshire who with over 9,000 runs is second only to Robin Smith in our all-time list of run-scorers – and the only man to have won a Championship, Sunday League and Lord’s Final with Hampshire.

In aggregate, he is just ahead of my next and perhaps most surprising candidate Gordon Greenidge who qualifies because he came to us as a Colt living in Reading, played for the 2^nd XI from 1967 and made his limited-overs debut in August 1970. As an obvious opener his average of 38.37 is impressive in the shorter form, although Winchester’s Tony Middleton is just ahead of that – if Fletcha establishes himself and averages 39.61 he’ll be doing well.

There are more choices in the home-grown batting than the bowling for to those I have mentioned so far, we must add Paul Terry and the ‘natural’ limited-overs captain Mark Nicholas, the man who finally took us to Lord’s (more than once) and the last of our Sunday League titles. He bowled a bit too in the ‘one-dayers’ but if he happened to be ‘indisposed’ as in the wonderful 1991 Final, then Jimmy Adams, another ‘leftie’ would be the man to take over.

All-rounders are an obvious limited-overs bonus and we have slow-left-armer Peter Sainsbury already – I would want him in harness with an off-spinner and handy bat in which case from the county’s northern borders, Shaun Udal, second only to ‘Cardie’ with 345 wickets, gets the nod over Nigel Cowley, although we will not forget the latter’s contributions to the first Lord’s triumph in 1988.

He was joined that day by the highly promising and desperately unlucky Jon Ayling, from Portsmouth – I see his bowling in the style of Scott Currie today, although not yet his big hitting – but the biggest claim as a limited-overs all-rounder is surely from Gosport’s Trevor Jesty. In 310 matches for Hampshire he scored nearly 7,000 runs at 27.32 (six hundreds) and took 334 wickets at 24.01, including an extraordinary 2-0 in seven overs at Hull on a Sunday afternoon in 1970.

That leaves us with the wicket-keeper where I think my choice will be Southampton’s Adi Aymes over Bobby Parks – perhaps the batting tips it; then I’ll need a pace bowler or two alongside Ayling and Jesty. The options here are less obvious but having mentioned the Middletons I’ll go for another father/son pairing and a fine one at that, Tim Tremlett (who won a couple of Sunday leagues) and his ‘little’ lad Chris Tremlett (glory at Lord’s).

So, my final 14-man ‘squad’ (*bowlers) is: Gordon Greenidge, Jimmy Adams, Paul Terry, Tony Middleton, David Turner, Mike Barnard, Trevor Jesty*, Mark Nicholas* (captain), Jon Ayling*, Peter Sainsbury*, Adi Aymes (w/kpr), Shaun Udal*, Tim Tremlett*, Chris Tremlett*

You can have fun whittling that down to XI - if our current young men are as good as them we should be OK.