New Captain

 By Brian Sanderson

Christopher Middleton Old  who was born on 22 December 1948 in
Middlesbrough chosen to be Captain of Yorkshire in 1981 after the
resignation of John Hampshire. He was the third player to captain
Yorkshire in four years,

 Old stated at the start of the season he wanted to attack and the
 team would do well.
The regulations had changed again which included
the removal of the 100 over first innings limit and reintroduction
of covered wickets..His deputy was Richard Lumb and team
manager Ray Illingworth.
During the season he felt he was not in control of a lot of things.
Richard Lumb called him to informed he was dropped for a match.
Illingworth had made the decision without telling Chris Old.Lumb
resigned from being vice captain which was taken over by Neil
Hartley.

In the County Championship Yorkshire slumped from sixth to tenth .
They had only ten capped players available for one Championship
match-against Derbyshire in August and Chris was affected by injury.
Old, in fact took only six championship wickets i the second half
of the season  Top of the batting was John Hampshire with 1415
runs.Top of the bowling was Sidebottom with 46 wickets
even though he missed a month with a groin strain.

During the winter of 1981/82 Chris went on the rebel tour of South
Africa.Also on the tour was Geoff Boycott but they did not talk
to each other.

In 1982 he started as captain but half way through it was taken
 away from him.
Next season he moved on to Warwickshire were he played
for three seasons.His best bowling figures for them was 6-46
against Yorkshire at Headingley in 1984.

Another victim of the Boycott era.