National Counties of English and Welsh cricket

History

The Minor Counties, i.e. those not afforded first-class status, formed their own Championship from 1895. In the early years, 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 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 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 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: 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 a period of a week or two. When they competed, the first-class county second elevens often played many more games.

Competitions

National Counties Championship – previously a competition in which teams played a minimum of eight two-day matches, usually against neighbouring counties, the competition was relaunched in 1983. It is now a three-day competition split into two divisions, each with 10 sides. Originally each team played all the others once a season; now four matches are played by each side. Divisional winners play off to decide Champions.

National Counties Trophy – limited overs competition.

National Counties Twenty20 Competition – Twenty20 competition

Present members

Western Division

Berkshire County Cricket Club

Cheshire County Cricket Club

Cornwall County Cricket Club

Devon County Cricket Club

Dorset County Cricket Club

Herefordshire County Cricket Club

Oxfordshire County Cricket Club

Shropshire County Cricket Club

Wales National County Cricket Club

Wiltshire County Cricket Club

Eastern Division

Bedfordshire County Cricket Club

Buckinghamshire County Cricket Club

Cambridgeshire County Cricket Club

Cumbria County Cricket Club

Hertfordshire County Cricket Club

Lincolnshire County Cricket Club

Norfolk County Cricket Club

Northumberland County Cricket Club

Staffordshire County Cricket Club

Suffolk County Cricket Club

Former members

True Minor Counties

Aside from the Minor Counties elevated to first-class status, the following sides have appeared in Minor Counties cricket, but no longer do so:

Carmarthenshire County Cricket Club, played 1908–1911

Denbighshire County Cricket Club, played 1930–1931 and 1933–1935

Monmouthshire County Cricket Club, played 1901–1914 and 1921–1934

These three counties are now represented in National Counties cricket as part of Wales National County Cricket Club.

Minor counties elevated to first-class status

The four Minor Counties later elevated to first-class status are, in order of departure:

Worcestershire County Cricket Club, played 1895–1898, first-class from 1899

Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, played 1896–1904, first-class from 1905

Glamorgan County Cricket Club, played 1897–1920, first-class from 1921

Durham County Cricket Club, played 1895, 1897, 1899–1991, first-class from 1992

First-class county second elevens

The following first-class county second elevens played in the Minor Counties competition:

Derbyshire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1948–1951, 1955–1958

Essex County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1914–1920, 1948–1959

Glamorgan County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1935–1937, 1948–1950

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1938–1939, 1947–1950, 1957–1959

Hampshire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1949–1952

Kent County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1911–1939, 1947–1958

Lancashire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1906–1908, 1921–1982

Leicestershire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1924–1929, 1931–1932, 1955–1959

Middlesex County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1935–1938, 1949–1958

Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1950–1959

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1909–1910, 1924–1931, 1947–1960

Somerset County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1955–1967, 1969–1987

Surrey County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1899–1939, 1947–1958

Minor Counties representative teams

Teams representing the Minor Counties have featured in first-class and List A matches for many years.

First-class matches

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; 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 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 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 the match venues were always in the "true" minor counties.

List A matches

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 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 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 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 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 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 the exception was a no-result game involving Minor Counties South.