It was potentially a harder week because we wouldn't have Keith [Barker] in the side and there was a lot of talk about having to bowl a few more overs. Among the beneficiaries post-war were Vic Cannings (cap 1950, benefit 1959), Jimmy Gray (cap 1951, benefit 1960), Roy Marshall (cap 1955, benefit 1961), Trevor Jesty (cap 1971, benefit 1982), and Malcolm Marshall (cap 1981, benefit 1987).

In 1962, reigning Champions Hampshire played 32 Championship matches plus first-class games at Oxford University and against the touring Pakistanis. Ten years later, there were just 20 Championship matches but three one-day competitions as Hampshire played three in the 60-over Gillette Cup, four in the brand new 55-over Benson & Hedges Cup and 16 on Sunday afternoons in the 40-over League sponsored by John Player. The county cap was a rather different matter before 1940 because Hampshire often selected a mix of amateur and professional players and amateurs would be ‘capped’ as a mark of respect for achievements – a nice gesture of no particular consequence longer term. Indeed, in a few cases it seems that the cap was presented as a gesture of friendship from the captain or committee to players whose achievements were substantially less than those of uncapped professionals. Richards long time opening partner was Gordon Greenidge. The Barbados born but Berkshire raised Greenidge played in over a hundred Tests for West Indies but gets a mention here by dint of spending the best part of two decades with Hampshire. His autobiography, The Man in the Middle, appeared in 1980.

Cricket

The Handbook reports that Hampshire batted poorly – Richard Lewis, also playing for the first team at that point scored 24 and the Handbook praised Nigel Cowley’s off-spin but Sussex set a target of 352 and Hampshire didn’t get close. In the second innings Bob Herman hit 30 but in both innings the leading Hampshire batter was John Nash, an Australian spending a summer in England. In this match he scored 39* & 38* and at the end of the season he topped the 2nd XI averages with 557 runs at 42.84. When the day-ending rain came at tea, he was six runs shy of a fifth half-century of the season and helped his side to a 73-run lead.

In terms of legacy and achievement the other member of the ‘class of ’68’ is one of the very best batsman to have played the game. Barry Richards thrilled county crowds for a decade. There are two books that concern the life of the great man, The Barry Richards Story, that appeared in 1978, and a biography by Murtagh in 2015, Sundial in the Shade. He is also the subject of a recent monograph from Michael Sexton, The Summer of Barry, that looks at his record breaking season with South Australia in 1970/71. In the days of Northlands Road, it also meant receiving a capped-players tie, and using the top players dressing room, to which young uncapped players had access only if they were playing in a first team match.Rain reduced Hove in 2005 to 12 overs each and Sussex won by 10 runs despite a fine all-round display by Sean Ervine with 2-28 and 46. In 2006 we went to Arundel where Greg Lamb hit 55* but Mushtaq’s 4-30 restricted us to 152-6 and Sussex won with five balls to spare. They hammered us at Hove in 2007, Luke Wright’s 98 taking them to their record score against Hampshire of 205-5 and we fell 73 short. Remarkably, they scored just one fewer the following year but this time everyone reached double figures with Carberry’s 58 leading Hampshire to a last-ball win and our record score. The most surprising statistic is that of the 44 other matches 22 were won batting first and 22 batting second. The toss did not help with only 16 toss winners going on to win the game, although the captains seemed to improve – they won just four of the first 20 matches having won the toss but won seven of the final eight. The other figures (rounded up or down):

A more permanent mark in the record books was made by Phil Mead, who began a career that lasted for more than thirty years in 1905. A prodigious run scorer throughout his career Mead was also, in the early years, a far from negligible slow left arm bowler. He was, finally, the subject of a biography, CP Mead, by Neil Jenkinson, a book published in 1992. Leaving, perhaps, the best until last brings me to the Barbadian fast bowler Malcolm Marshall. During his fourteen years with Hampshire, in 1987, Marshall’s autobiography, Marshall Arts, appeared. In 2000, following Marshall’s untimely death, his collaborator in that book, Pat Symes, updated and republished the book as Maco: The Malcolm Marshall Story. Fletcha Middleton, who has opened throughout the season, only made eight before Sam Cook stung his pads.Following on after being bundled out for 149 before lunch, the hosts limped to 63 all out in their second innings at Wantage Road. Adam Rossington was challenged outside his off stump by John Turner to edge behind - the newly England-qualified fast bowler claiming Championship best of 3-23.