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46-504: These tours usually lasted a few weeks in the warmer months of July and August and included matches against club sides, minor county sides, and county second elevens. More than half of the matches were in either Wales or the west of England . None of the matches were first-class. Pakistan Eaglets played a three-day first-class match in Lahore in May 1960 against the touring Indian Starlets side,

92-491: A Middlesex side featuring Andrew Strauss in 2001. However, the majority of the time it was an opportunity for county sides to score very high scores against or bowl out cheaply Minor Counties opposition. One of the most famous matches in the competition was the 1971 Gillette Cup semi-final at Old Trafford , with David Hughes of Lancashire coming out to bat at 8.45 pm (before any floodlights) and scoring 24 in one over to beat Gloucestershire . That Lancashire team won

138-647: A bowler bowling a maximum of 13. For the 1966 competition until 1998, the maximum was 12. Minor Counties teams first competed in the 1964 season. The competition has been seen as a cricketing version of football's FA Cup (it being said that "the B&;H was always the League Cup final to the Gillette/NatWest's FA Cup "), with Minor Counties, Ireland and Scotland playing against the First Class Counties in

184-480: A first-class umpire ) and six wickets for Edward Hazelton of Buckinghamshire. After that, a Minor Counties representative side was normally accorded a first-class fixture against the touring team, though sometimes the match was downgraded to a two-day non-first-class match. In some cases, the Minor Counties team included uncapped players from first-class counties' second elevens or former first-class players, though

230-616: A limited-overs competition (65 overs-a-side) the following year for all first-class counties, sponsored by American safety razor company Gillette . The original title was " The First Class Knock Out Competition for the Gillette Cup ". The first match (which was also retrospectively identified as the first List A cricket match after that designation was developed), was a Preliminary Round match on 1 May 1963 at Old Trafford, Manchester with Lancashire facing Leicestershire . The match ended up lasting two days due to rain. Peter Marner scored

276-468: A period of a week or two. When they competed, the first-class county second elevens often played many more games. The championship was decided by the average points gained per game. If the second-placed side had not met the leading team, under Rule 16 a challenge match could be played. The result was sometimes computed into the final championship table but this practice was discontinued in 1954 when Devon complained that they would drop from second to fourth as

322-551: A result of the Challenge match. The Minor Counties Championship was substantially reorganised in 1983 when the present two-division regional structure was introduced, along with a one-day knock-out competition. More recently, championship matches have increased to three days. The departure of Somerset Second XI in 1987 led to the introduction of the Wales Minor Counties side; Durham's elevation to first-class status in 1992 saw

368-414: A scheduled 120 overs in a day (130 when the tournament began) necessitated some early starts. End of season early-morning conditions by the time of the final often favoured the team fielding first, who usually triumphed in the 1980s and 1990s. A rare exception occurred in 1996, when Lancashire bowlers Glen Chapple and Peter Martin triggered a remarkable collapse by Essex . In 1999 the number of overs

414-523: A team composed largely of Test players. Minor Counties' next outing as a first-class side was again against the South Africans, this time in 1924, but it was the third match, the 1928 game at Exeter against the West Indies that cemented the fixture in the calendar. After following on, Minor Counties won the match by 42 runs, thanks largely to 154 by Aaron Lockett , a batsman from Staffordshire (and later

460-851: A team of young Indian cricketers. In the drawn match, Ijaz Butt was the Eaglets' top scorer with 161. From late August to late September 1960 the Pakistan Eaglets played four matches in Malaya, three in Singapore, and four in Ceylon. The tour ended with a first-class match against the Ceylon Cricket Association in Colombo , a slow, low-scoring affair that ended in a draw. Ijaz Butt top-scored in each innings with 54 and 67, and Fazal-ur-Rehman took 5 for 61 in

506-537: The English domestic one-day competition between 1999 and 2003. The Isle of Wight , historically a part of Hampshire but now a county in its own right, also has its own Cricket Board. In 2020, the Minor Counties were rebranded as the National Counties Cricket Association. The Minor Counties, i.e. those not afforded first-class status, formed their own Championship from 1895. In the early years,

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552-522: The National Westminster Bank took over the sponsorship of the competition from Gillette. That year's final finished in a tie, with both sides scored 235. Derbyshire claiming the trophy from Northamptonshire by losing fewer wickets (Derbyshire 6 to Northants 9). Other last ball finishes in the final occurred in 1984 when Middlesex beat Kent , in 1985 when Essex beat Nottinghamshire , and in 1993 when Warwickshire beat Sussex . There

598-477: The Second World War , the first-class county second XIs frequently won the Minor Counties title, but after 1959, when the counties set up their own Second XI competition , fewer contested the Minor Counties games. Yorkshire Second XI was the last second XI winner of the title in 1971, and Somerset Second XI was the last to compete, withdrawing after the 1987 season. The "true" Minor Counties teams (i.e. not

644-665: The cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA) , which comes under the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). There are currently twenty teams in National Counties cricket: nineteen representing historic counties of England , plus the Wales National County Cricket Club . Of

690-563: The 1965 final, and the domination of the 1979 final by the West Indies pair Viv Richards and Joel Garner , who helped Somerset to their first major trophy a few months after helping West Indies to win the World Cup , also at Lord's . Another West Indies international, Alvin Kallicharran , completed the first double century in the tournament in 1984, in a tie in which he remarkably also took six wickets. The necessity of aiming to complete

736-563: The 2005 season when the Cup changed to a league format for first-class counties (plus Ireland and Scotland) only. When the Benson & Hedges Cup started as the second List A cup competition in England and Wales in 1972, it was organised in a different format from the knock-out Gillette Cup. The then 17 first-class counties were put into four mini-leagues for the first phase of the competition, and to even up

782-797: The 2006 season. The tournament, along with the Pro40 forty-overs competition, was replaced by the ECB 40 competition from the 2010 season. It was the first top-level one-day competition to be introduced in English and Welsh cricket, amid concern about falling attendances at County Championship matches in the early 1960s. The competition was based on the Midlands Counties Knockout Cup experiment of 1962, when Derbyshire , Leicestershire , Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire played one-innings-a-side matches which each lasted one day. The MCC decided to hold

828-625: The 39 historic counties of England, 17 have a first-class county cricket team (the 18th first-class county is Glamorgan in Wales) and 19 participate in the National Counties championship. Since 2021, Cumberland and Westmorland have been represented by Cumbria in the National Counties championship, while the remaining two historic counties, Huntingdonshire and Rutland , have associations with other counties (Huntingdonshire with Cambridgeshire and Rutland with Leicestershire ). Despite this, Huntingdonshire has its own Cricket Board , and took part in

874-548: The Championship was constituted as such). Four further Minor Counties have since been granted first-class status – Worcestershire in 1899, Northamptonshire in 1905, Glamorgan in 1921 and Durham in 1992. The second XIs of the first-class counties competed in the Minor Counties Championship from its early days and Lancashire Second XI won the Championship title in 1907. For 10 years before and 15 years after

920-527: The Minor Counties competition: Teams representing the Minor Counties have featured in first-class and List A matches for many years. The first Minor Counties side played a three-day match at Stoke-on-Trent against the South African cricket team that toured Britain and Ireland in 1912 and that took part in the Triangular Tournament . The first and third days of the match were washed out by rain;

966-509: The Minor Counties' first two victories, in 1980 and 1981, were by the margin of three runs, against Gloucestershire and Hampshire respectively. At no stage did the representative team reach the next phase of the competition, the knock-out stage. In 1999, the Benson & Hedges was recast as a "Super Cup" for only the top eight first-class teams; another change in format in 2000 saw three leagues of six first-class counties set up. This lasted until

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1012-468: The Minor Counties' total of 127 relied heavily on 51 from Norman Riches , later Glamorgan's first first-class captain, and the three South African wickets that fell for 22 runs by close of play on the second day were all taken by Durham medium-pace bowler Alfred Morris, whose only other first-class match was for "An England XI" against the Australians later that summer, when he took seven further wickets for

1058-472: The North and South Conferences. Matches were 50 overs per side, gaining two points for a win, one point for a no result and no points for a loss. Once the league positions were decided, the top teams from each Conference competed for the trophy in a final at Lord's . In the 2007 season this involved a semi-final knock-out stage, the winner in each conference playing the runners-up in the other. The league structure

1104-510: The addition of Ireland, Scotland and 13 Minor County sides. The first round was seeded, with all of the non-first-class teams drawn against a first-class county. At no stage in Minor County participation in this competition were first-class teams' second elevens considered eligible for qualification for the competition, but more recently minor counties had to compete against "county board" sides composed of non-first-class cricketers to qualify for

1150-687: The arrival of Herefordshire , the first time a side from that county had competed. In 2020, the Minor Counties were renamed as "National Counties", in part because of the negative connotations of the term "Minor". The competition was restructured at the same time. Aside from the Minor Counties elevated to first-class status, the following sides have appeared in Minor Counties cricket, but no longer do so: These three counties are now represented in National Counties cricket as part of Wales National County Cricket Club . The four Minor Counties later elevated to first-class status are, in order of departure: The following first-class county second elevens played in

1196-522: The best bowling figures of 8 for 84 against Kent, but the highest overall wicket tally was shared by Asif Iqbal , 19 at 14.73, and Intikhab Alam , 19 at 23.15. Of the 18 players on the tour, 14 played Test cricket. Four (Intikhab Alam, Majid Khan , Asif Iqbal and Mushtaq Mohammad) went on to captain the Test team. Minor county The National Counties , known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are

1242-506: The competition was abandoned in favour of the new Twenty20 Cup after the 2002 season, and the Minor Counties did not figure in this set-up. Friends Provident Trophy The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom. It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class counties competed each season. They were joined by teams from Scotland and Ireland . Lancashire won

1288-413: The exception was a no-result game involving Minor Counties South. After 1980, as part of the same move that brought Ireland into the Gillette Cup, Scotland joined the Benson & Hedges Cup, cutting the Minor Counties to a single team. Over the next 19 seasons until the format was changed again after the 1998 competition, the Minor Counties won six out of 75 matches, with a further four "no-results". Both

1334-418: The experienced Test player Wazir Mohammad . In their eight first-class matches they had innings victories over Cambridge University and Kent , lost to Worcestershire and Derbyshire , and drew the other four. Faqir Aizazuddin made the highest first-class score, 187 against Cambridge University, and Mushtaq Mohammad hit two centuries and made most runs, 593 at an average of 53.90. Mohammad Munaf had

1380-497: The first Minor County side in the cup's second round (in which they lost heavily to the eventual winners, Sussex ). The Minor County representation in this competition remained at this level until 1983, by which time it had been renamed the NatWest Trophy . In that season, a new structure for the competition was adopted, with all the first-class counties taking part in the first round, and the numbers of teams being made up to 32 by

1426-457: The first century and Brian Statham was the first bowler to take 5 wickets in a match. Sussex were the first winners of the Gillette Cup, beating Worcestershire in the final at Lord's . Norman Gifford was the first "Man of the Match" for a final. In the inaugural season the matches were 65 overs per side, with a bowler bowling a maximum of 15 overs. In 1964, this was reduced to 60 overs with

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1472-659: The first innings. In 1961-62 a team from India representing the Associated Cement Company played three first-class matches in Pakistan. The match against the Pakistan Eaglets in Lahore was drawn with the Eaglets seven wickets down for 101 in pursuit of a target of 130 for victory. Iqbal Sheikh took 7 for 46 and 5 for 120 with his off-spin, and the wicket-keeper Fasihuddin made 147. Pakistan Eaglets, sponsored by Pakistan International Airlines , played 20 matches on their 1963 tour of England and Wales. They were captained by

1518-413: The first round, with up to 60 teams involved. The first Minor County to beat a first-class county in the Gillette Cup was Durham: in 1973, the county beat Yorkshire at Harrogate by five wickets. In all, 10 Minor Counties sides beat first-class opposition up to 2005 (and three other sides, Ireland, Scotland and Holland, also beat first-class counties). Minor County involvement in the competition ended after

1564-424: The first round. Most times the established teams beat the part-timers but very occasionally there was some "giant killing". Between 1963 and 2005 there were 15 "upsets", including: Durham (at that time still a minor county) being the first in 1973 v Yorkshire ; Hertfordshire being successful on two occasions, beating Essex in 1976, and winning a bowl-out versus Derbyshire in 1991; and Herefordshire overcoming

1610-447: The match venues were always in the "true" minor counties. The five top Minor Counties sides from the previous season were put into the draw for the first round of the second-ever Gillette Cup competition in 1964, alongside seven first-class counties. The five, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Durham, Hertfordshire and Wiltshire, were not seeded in any way, and Durham were drawn at home to Hertfordshire, beating them easily, and thereby becoming

1656-623: The most recent example of a Test cricket player whose main cricket was in the Minor Counties was David Townsend in 1934–35. His county cricket was for Durham, though he played first-class cricket for Oxford University . Traditionally, the Minor Counties played a minimum of eight matches, until recent times of two days duration, and few of them played more than 12 matches. Usually the matches were fairly local, against neighbouring counties, rather than against distant teams, and matches were often played in batches so that amateur players could time their holidays from work to take part in several games over

1702-440: The numbers, three additional teams were recruited: a combined Oxford and Cambridge Universities side, and two representative sides from the Minor Counties. For the first four years, the teams were called Minor Counties North and Minor Counties South; from 1976 to 1979, the counties were split longitudinally into Minor Counties East and West. None of these divided representative teams was at all successful: 63 of 64 games were lost and

1748-498: The results of matches against teams that did not play enough games to qualify for the final table were included in the records of those who did. For example, Cambridgeshire played only Norfolk . Five notionally Second Class county clubs – Essex , Warwickshire , Derbyshire , Hampshire and Leicestershire – joined the County Championship for the first time (some of them had had periods of being considered first-class before

1794-508: The second XI of a first-class county) were often composed entirely of amateur players, though some had a few professionals as well, especially where there were strong professional leagues locally. An example of a professional who played regular Minor Counties cricket was the England bowler Sydney Barnes . After falling out with Lancashire, he played most of his cricket outside the first-class game with Staffordshire . In early days, Minor Counties teams supplied some amateur cricketers of note too:

1840-569: The title a record seven times. The competition was previously known as the Gillette Cup (1963–1980), the NatWest Trophy (1981–2000), and the C&;G Trophy (2000–2006). For a short period following the 2006 season, the competition was known as the ECB One-Day Trophy because no sponsors were forthcoming when Cheltenham and Gloucester decided to end their association with the competition after

1886-457: The tournament three seasons in a row from 1970 to 1972. In June 1973, Durham became the first minor county to defeat a first-class county in the competition, when they beat Yorkshire by six wickets in round one. They then became the first minor county to defeat two first class counties, when they defeated Derbyshire at the same stage in 1985. This was the catalyst for the successful campaign that saw Durham gain first-class status in 1991. In 1981,

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1932-491: Was a notable finish too in 1987 when Nottinghamshire 's unlikely victory over Northamptonshire was engineered by Richard Hadlee in his last season with the county. The tournament was always the more prestigious of the two "full length" one day cup competitions. The other was the Benson & Hedges Cup , which was abolished in 2002 and replaced with the Twenty20 Cup . At a time when county cricketers' exposure on television

1978-437: Was cut to 50 per side to give English and Welsh cricketers more experience of playing matches the same length as One Day Internationals . In line with One Day International cricket, teams played in coloured clothing from 2005. The competition was revised into a league format from 2006. The eighteen English and Welsh first-class sides, plus Scotland and Ireland, were split into two groups of ten by geographical location known as

2024-441: Was expressed in 1990 when Phillip DeFreitas was initially overlooked for selection for the winter Ashes series , it being suggested at the time that he "surely booked his place on England's winter tour of Australia with an astonishing eight-over opening burst, which reduced Northants to an unbelievable 39 for five" in the final. Other notable individual performances included a brisk out-of-character century by Geoff Boycott in

2070-658: Was limited, the final of the Gillette Cup/NatWest Bank Trophy was a relatively high-profile opportunity for some to make a case for national selection, especially as it often fell in early September, just before the announcement of an England winter tour party. Thus strong performances by Roland Butcher in the 1980 final, and Geoff Cook in 1981, may have assisted their subsequent selection and Test debuts. The strong performances of then young cricketers Angus Fraser and Mark Ramprakash for Middlesex in 1988 certainly raised their profiles. Conversely surprise

2116-528: Was revised in 2008 as the twenty teams were split into four groups of five. Each team plays the other in the group home once and away once, with the top 2 counties in the group going into the quarter-finals. The competition was played in the first half of the cricket season with the final taking place in August. The other main domestic one-day competition, the Natwest Pro40 League (formerly "Sunday League"),

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