Cricket History Question

[Tubby Isaacs]

Cricket History Question

Oi, I'm claiming a few of unofficial titles for Gloucs. Wisden (1996) gives us 3 of those. Our best ever player was 42 when the official championship started.

[E10 Rifle]

Cricket History Question

Essex's six titles all came within a 13-year period, and all during my cricket-supporting lifetime. Not that there's any likelihood of any others any time soon mind.

[Gangster Octopus]

Cricket History Question

Yorkshire's 31 championships include a whole one since I've been following cricket. And then they went and got relegated straight after it...

[King On The Rye]

Cricket History Question

County Championship, most titles:

* Yorkshire 31
* Surrey 19
* Middlesex 12
* Lancashire 8
* Kent 7
* Essex 6
* Warwickshire 6
* Nottinghamshire 5
* Worcestershire 5
* Glamorgan 3
* Leicestershire 3
* Sussex 3
* Hampshire 2
* Derbyshire 1

Those top four probably have the biggest populations to draw on: traditionally, teams were composed of players born within the county. I would add Kent to what Rogin said about the 1970s.

Wooden spoons:

* Derbyshire 14
* Somerset 12
* Northamptonshire 11
* Glamorgan 10
* Nottinghamshire 8
* Sussex 8
* Gloucestershire 7
* Leicestershire 7
* Worcestershire 6
* Durham 5
* Hampshire 5
* Warwickshire 3
* Essex 2
* Kent 2
* Yorkshire 1

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Cricket History Question

Yorkshire, Lancashire and Surrey won almost all the County Championships between them until the 1960s (Surrey were the "Yankees" of their time, winning every title from 1952 to 1958). Since then, Middlesex and Essex were the dominant counties of the 70s and 80s, and Warwickshire and Sussex have each won 3 titles since 1990.

There are various formats of one-day cricket, the oldest and most respected competition is played at 50 overs per side, like the international World Cup format, and is a knock-out in its later stages leading to a final at Lord's. There's also a one-day league (which is a separate competition altogether) which used to be the "Sunday League", where matches are 40 overs per side (shorter precisely because the games used to be played on Sundays, and everyone was supposed to be at church in the morning).

The wild and frantic runfest 20-20 version is the most recent innovation, and is a shortened version specifically designed to be able to be played under floodlights, for an evening (post-work) audience. It's undoubtedly proved popular, and will almost certainly mean the counties at some point ditching the 40-over league (which is already an anachronism) and replacing those fixtures with more of the 20-20 stuff.

[Reed John]

Cricket History Question

Well, if none of those teams have won, who is winning? There aren't that many counties in Britain.

Is one-day the same as that 20/20 thing?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Cricket History Question

Somerset have been trying to win the County Championship since 1882 without any success so far. I think this may be because, rather than in spite of, the fact that they get more sunshine than the other counties, so finish a higher proportion of games (tending to, er, lose them).

[ursus arctos]

Cricket History Question

There's also the fact that there are four first class counties which have never won the official County Championship: Durham, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Somerset (though Durham only joined in 1992 and Northamptonshire in 1905).

It's also interesting that despite their long drought, Sussex have never finished last (a position with which the Cubs have extensive familiarity).

[Etienne]

Cricket History Question

The more eamazing (and oft-quoted) statistic is that Lancashire haven't won the championship outright sonce 1934, despite being one of the largest and richest counties.

As for Sussex, the championship didn't actually exist in the early years and the top county was awarded, not won. By that system, Sussex were 3 times best county in the 1840s and 1850s.

They've also won the biggest one-day tournament 5 times (in 1963, 1964, 1978, 1986, 2006), and the one day league.

So it's not been that bad!

[Reed John]

A random fact just caught my eye. Sussex County won its first county Championship in 2003. The club has existed since 1839 and the game has roots in the area all the way back to the Saxon invasion.

So that means 144 years of futility. One-hundred-and-forty-four. That makes the Cubs fans look like whiners.

Is that true? Did they really win nothing in 144 years? Even a blind squirrel and a broken clock and all of that...