Statistical Preview: Hampshire

Derbyshire’s almost 60-year odyssey in one day cricket began with a match against Hampshire in 1963, and the Incora County Ground welcomes the south coast side for the first time in List A cricket since 2014 for the fourth match in the Royal London One Day Cup, 2022.

Heritage Officer David Griffin Heritage Officer David Griffin previews the match and looks at the statistical highlights of the past.

This will be the 52nd scheduled one day game between these sides, Derbyshire winning 17, Hampshire 27, with one tie and six matches abandoned.

Back in 1963, nobody expected the newly-formed Gillette Cup competition to lead to an explosion in what is now termed white ball cricket. Played in white kit with a red ball and with 65 overs per side – plus tea, lunch and a between innings interval – all crammed into a single day, the new competition was to transform cricket, firstly in the UK, and then worldwide.

That first match took place at Bournemouth and Derbyshire won by six runs after making 250 for 9 in their allocation of overs. Ian Hall (61) and Derek Morgan (59) were the principal run-scorers, while with the ball, Les Jackson, in his final season, recorded figures of 15-6-24-1.

Important and pivotal one day matches against Hampshire have loomed large in the ensuing years; the final game of the John Player League season in 1975 which was staged – and televised – at Darley Dale, a tied Sunday League match at Southampton in 1987 – Derbyshire’s first in one day cricket; the Benson and Hedges Cup Final at Lord’s in 1988 which Hampshire won by seven wickets; and the Royal London Cup game at Derby in 2014 when Wes Durston and Wayne Madsen both scored hundreds in their 136 run win.

Derbyshire’s highest innings total came in that 2014 game when they amassed 340 for five, while their opponents highest total was made a year earlier at Southampton when they scored 277 for eight to win by 46 runs.

Four players have made one day hundreds against Hampshire – Madsen’s 138 topping the list from 2014, with Durston (134 also in 2014), Peter Kirsten (110* in 1982) and Dean Jones (101* in 1996) scoring the others.

Derbyshire have recorded seven century partnerships in these games, with the 222 added by Durston and Madsen in 2014 at the top of the list.

With the ball, it may surprise many to know that Peter Kirsten, unquestionably one of Derbyshire finest-ever cricketers – with the bat – recorded the best bowling figures in one cricket against Hampshire, taking four for 13 at Bournemouth in 1978, although Mike Hendrick is the only bowler to take four wickets twice against them.

Only five times in List A matches have two Derbyshire bowlers each taken four wickets in an innings, one of which was against Hampshire in 1976 when Hendrick (four for 35) and Eddie Barlow (four for 51) were the star turns with the ball.

Finally, behind the wicket, there is just a single instance of a Derbyshire wicketkeeper competing six dismissals in a match against Hampshire, Karl Krikken taking six catches in Derbyshire’s seven wicket win at Southampton in 1994.

One-day cricket is back in the height of summer!

Derbyshire compete in enthralling 50-over cricket this August, including the visit of Yorkshire to Queen’s Park. Find out more and book tickets for all home matches now.