In my most recent posting I referred to a family holiday in Bournemouth in 1959, the last time I went on holiday with my parents. Wisden described that summer as 'wonderful...with days on end of glorious sunshine' and the two weeks we spent at Mr Scott's guest house in Boscombe certainly lived up to that description with only one short shower on our penultimate day to cause us any inconvenience. Given such lovely weather much of our time was spent on the beach but on Wednesday 26th September we made our way to Dean Park for the first day of a three day match between Hampshire and that year's tourists, India.
India came to the coast having two days earlier lost the fifth and final test at the Oval by an innings and 27 runs, their fifth test defeat of the summer when despite the excellent batting conditions they failed to reach 200 seven times out of ten attempts. Only 8500 attended on the Saturday of the match, how times change for such an event would be a sell out now one imagines. At Dean Park the cavalier Roy Marshall opened the batting for Hants with his usual partner Jimmy Gray. Marshall did not disappoint this fifteen year old for his first eight scoring shots were fours and with Mike Barnard hitting a century the home team finished the day on 360 for 9, at which point they declared. What we paid for admission I have no idea but given that India bowled 129 overs in the day it is unlikely that we felt short changed.
We did not see any more of the match but those there on the last afternoon saw India save the match following a characteristically challenging declaration by Hants skipper Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie. Stubborn defence by Baig and Joshi saw India to 96 for 8 at stumps.
First class cricket had been played at Dean Park since 1897 when the Gentlemen of Philadelphia came to sniff the briny and the following year the first championship match was played there with Somerset the visitors. After that,with the exception of the war years, championship matches were played at the ground, as many as five in some seasons, without a break until 1992 when beginning on August 18th the last first class match took place with Middlesex as Hampshire's opponents. Too significant an occasion for me to miss and I duly made the 125 mile journey from my East Sussex home in plenty of time for the start on what I recall was a pleasant day. Winning the toss and batting Hampshire were 341 for 8 at the close. Top scorer was Mark Nicholas with 95 and there were good contributions down the order from Jonathan Ayling and Adrian Aymes. With Emburey bowling 40 overs in the innings and Tufnell 23 the over rate was not as desultory as one might imagine.
In reply Middlesex struggled against the spin of Ayling but 93 not out from Mike Gatting and 77 not out from John Carr on the last day meant that Hampshire could not turn this historic occasion into a winning one. After the match a single rose was left on the wicket with message 'Will ye no come back again?' With Hampshire administratively at least becoming part of Dorset, Minor Counties matches were played there until 2015 but Hampshire have not returned except for a Nat West Trophy match in 1998 when Robin Smith feasted on the host's bowling.
No comments:
Post a Comment