Northamptonshire County Cricket Club

Northamptonshire Cricket Club is one of the 18 major counties which make up the English domestic cricket structure. The team plays the majority of its games at the County Cricket Ground, Northampton, but has used outlier grounds at Peterborough, Kettering, Wellingborough and Finedon in the past. It has also used grounds outside the county, at Luton and Tring, for one-day games.

Related Topics:
English - Cricket - County Cricket Ground - Northampton - Peterborough - Kettering - Wellingborough - Finedon - Luton - Tring

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The club was promoted to first-class status in 1905, but apart from one season when it finished second in 1912, it was consistently among the weaker counties. Matters got even worse in the 1930s, and the county went for four years without a single victory in the County Championship, from 1935 to 1939.

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After the Second World War, Northamptonshire was quicker than many other counties to adapt to a more professional game. After more bad years in the late 1940s, it recruited widely and wisely from other counties and other countries, bringing in the one-time England captain Freddie Brown from Surrey, the Australians Jock Livingston, George Tribe and Jack Manning, and the Cambridge University opening bat and leg-spinner Raman Subba Row. Though the tearaway Ashes-winning fast bowler Frank Tyson was, through injury, rarely able to sustain continuous county cricket, Northamptonshire was among the leading counties in the late 1950s.

Related Topics:
Second World War - England - Freddie Brown - Surrey - Jock Livingston - George Tribe - Jack Manning - Cambridge University - Raman Subba Row - Ashes - Frank Tyson

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Later years have proved more mixed: though the club has had intermittent success in one-day competitions, it has not yet won the Championship. Nonetheless it has produced several famous players qualified for England including the South African-born Allan Lamb who scored three centuries against the mighty 1984 West Indians, Tyson's equally injury-prone successor David Larter, the hard hitting Colin Milburn, whose career was cut tragically short by an eye injury sustained in a car crash, the reliable David Steele and Rob Bailey, the punishing Wayne Larkins, the obdurate Peter Willey and all-rounder David Capel, who found like so many the tag of 'the new Botham' hard to bear.

Related Topics:
One-day - Allan Lamb - David Larter - Colin Milburn - David Steele - Rob Bailey - Wayne Larkins - Peter Willey - David Capel

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Several notable overseas players such as Curtly Ambrose, Kapil Dev and Bishen Bedi have starred for the club, which was particularly formidable as a one day batting outfit in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but silverware remains a rarity through their long history.

Related Topics:
Curtly Ambrose - Kapil Dev - Bishen Bedi

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The groundsman is David Bates.

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