On This Day: Adams Helps Chase Down 404 To Win

Hampshire Cricket's historian Dave Allen takes a look back on timely memorable moments in his ‘On This Day’ series.

Yorkshire v Hampshire, County Championship: 31st May - 3rd June 2006

It might seem unremarkable to note that on the third evening of a Championship match at Headingley, Jimmy Adams, still battling to secure his place as a regular member of the side, walked in on 17*, accompanied by Michael Carberry on 21*. Hampshire, having trailed Yorkshire on first innings by 102 runs were responding to the home team’s declaration on 301-8 – a challenge requiring Hampshire to score 404 runs to win.

To place that in context, only one team, Bradman’s Australians in the 1948 Test series, had ever scored 400 or more in a fourth innings at Headingley to win a match, and no team, home or away, had ever scored 400 v Yorkshire to win or lose a game - so even with an overnight score of 46-0, Hampshire’s task seemed impossible.

However, on this day - 3rd June - Jimmy Adams rose to the task magnificently, batting through the final day, to finish on 168* from 313 balls. Alongside him there were half-centuries for Carberry and Australian Dominic Thorneley and with time running out, Greg Lamb hit six fours from 18 balls and Hampshire won an incredible victory by five wickets.

Jimmy Adams ended the season with over 1,000 runs at an average of 45.11