From The Archive: Semi-Satisfied

Hampshire supporters of different ages will probably have different views of the team’s records in what we now call ‘white-ball’ cricket. Younger supporters probably expect at least a semi-final or ‘Finals Day’ each year, those born in the mid-1970s have fond memories of successful visits to Lord’s, while recalling fallow stretches, but those of my vintage or older are I suspect still a bit grateful for all the successes following out first Final in 1988, since we lived through a quarter-of-a-century of limited-overs cricket when we became known as the only county not to reach a Lord’s Final. Even Glamorgan, who have never won a Lord’s Final, got there in the 1977 Gillette Cup Final, but in the same season we failed to chase down a semi-final target of 181 in 55 overs to beat Gloucestershire, after Mike Procter’s hat-trick had reduced us to 18-4.

In the previous year, again at Southampton and in the 60-over Gillette Cup, we set Northants a target of 216 and lost by two wickets, but more significantly from the penultimate ball which Bedi hit for a couple of runs. Most of the sell-out crowd went home frustrated of course – after all it was ten years since our first semi-final defeat, at Worcester, by the larger margin of 99 runs. That first Hampshire semi-final was in the fourth season of the competition, which started for us at Bournemouth with defeat to Derbyshire by just six runs on Wednesday 22 May 1963 – and despite a fine innings of 98 by Mike Barnard.

After the Worcester defeat in 1966, we had to wait nine years for the next semi-final, which came in the B&H Cup at Leicester. Despite the presence of Barry Richards, Gordon Greenidge (111), and Andy Roberts (1-16 from ten overs and one ball), we lost with five balls to spare; the first of three semi-final defeats in three consecutive seasons.

Nick Pocock became captain in 1980 and in 1983, led his side to a Nat West 60-over semi-final at Canterbury, where, chasing 173 (Marshall 4-15 in 12 overs), we reached 41 before the first wicket fell, then collapsed to Baptiste and Cowdrey, losing by 71 runs! Two years later at Southampton we posted 224 in 60 overs against Essex, for whom Graham Gooch then scored 93* - despite being clearly run out (the photos are in the Handbook). Essex having chosen to field first, then took advantage of the dark skies, came back the next day and won with scores level, having lost fewer wickets. Some of us began to wonder whether we would ever see Hampshire at Lord’s, but in 1988 – again over two days – we had our revenge against Essex, winning a fine B&H Cup victory at Chelmsford, thanks to a Paul Terry century, before going on to win the trophy against Derbyshire.

Even then, we lost another three consecutive semi-finals, the first a few weeks after our Lord’s triumph at Worcester, another in the following year at home to Middlesex by just three runs when our centurion Chris Smith was injured by a ‘full’ ball from Angus Fraser, and even more frustratingly by one run to Northants at Southampton in 1990.

We had however had a taste of Lord’s and we won two semi-finals in the next two years in 1991 at Edgbaston, and in 1992 at home to Somerset. In both cases, we won the Final (v Surrey and Kent). After three trophies and six semi-finals in five years, ‘knock-out’ cricket was again a bit quiet for Hampshire. We lost semi-finals at Worcester (again) in 1994, at home to Lancashire in 1998 (after collapsing to 28-5), and at Edgbaston in 2000, before beating Yorkshire at our new ground in 2005, and going back to victory at Lord’s against Warwickshire.  We beat the ‘Bears’ again in a semi-final two years later, but that led to our only Final defeat – a soggy two-day affair against Durham.

I suspect memories are reasonably fresh of semi-finals and finals since then. In 2009, the last of the 40 over seasons, we won at Old Trafford, went to Lord’s and Dominic Cork was ‘man-of-the-match’ as we beat Sussex. In 2012, our ‘double’ year, our batsmen took us to a fine semi-final victory at Hove, after which we beat Warwickshire in that last-ball nail-biter, and in 2013 we suffered our only recent defeat at home to Glamorgan – Dimi’s last appearance for Hampshire. Last year our captain’s 171 took us to victory at home to Yorkshire, and the Final win against Kent. Despite being late to the party, we now have seven Lord’s Final trophies, including three in this century. Let’s hope 2019 increases that to eight and four.

Dave Allen