County cricket needs a State of Origin style ‘War of Roses’
Boycott at the crease at Old Trafford in 1970. The Lancashire bowler is David Hughes and the wicket-keeper is Farokh Engineer – Bob Thomas
At a time when the County Championship needs all the spectators it can attract, it is lamentable that the Roses Match is no longer played.
The Roses Match used to be the biggest fixture of the whole English cricket season, certainly between the two World Wars, except in an Ashes summer.
Old Trafford packed in a total crowd of 78,617 in 1926 for Lancashire v Yorkshire, more than 25,000 spectators per day. Into the 1980s Granada TV would broadcast the Roses Match live.
For well over a century the Roses Match was played twice a season in the County Championship, home and away. In 1993, with the arrival of four-day cricket, it went down to once. Since 2000 it has depended on whether Lancashire and Yorkshire are in the same division, which they aren’t this year.
‘No fours before lunch, on principle’
The unique flavour of Roses cricket was best summed up by Sir Neville Cardus. “The Lancashire and Yorkshire match was every year like a play and pageant exhibiting the genius of the two counties. No fours before lunch, on principle, was the unannounced policy; and as few as possible after. Imagine the scene: Bramall Lane. Factory chimneys everywhere; a pall of smoke between earth and sun. A crowd mainly silent; hard hats or caps and scarves on all sides.
“Cricket on the dole; nature herself on the dole. The very grass on the field of play told of the struggle for existence,” Cardus wrote in Autobiography. “At Sheffield there is a refreshment-room situated deep in the earth under a concrete stand. I descended one afternoon for a cup of tea. A plump Yorkshire lass served me and I asked for a spoon. ‘It’s there, Maister,’ she said. ‘Where?’ I asked. She pointed with her bread-knife. ‘There,’ she said, “tied to t’counter, lad.’ So it was; a lead spoon tied to the premises with a piece of string.”
That was Cardus the romantic writer; there was also Cardus the realistic reporter. He told us straight about the defensiveness of Roses cricket in a match report for The Guardian in 1920: “This has been a day of spineless cricket. Five hours and a quarter’s play – an innings of 208 by Yorkshire, with a half-hearted response of 77 for five from Lancashire. In all that time we have had not more than 10 minutes of batting worth walking a hundred yards to see.”
So dour did Roses cricket become that all eight encounters from 1928-31 inclusive were drawn. From 1946-53 inclusive, out of 16 derbies, one had a definite result: a win for Lancashire by 14 runs after Brian Close had fallen over mid-pitch in the run-chase. Even after the first-class counties tried limited-overs cricket from 1963 and scoring rates climbed, nine out of 10 Roses games in the first half of the 1970s ended in draws. Give ’em nowt.
The last Roses championship match occurred in 2022. Yorkshire subsequently have been in the second division. They might even remain there, for all their talent, if they keep on making declarations like they did earlier this season: they set Gloucestershire, who have forgotten how to win a red-ball match, a target of 498 in less than four sessions, with rain around. It would have been the third-highest successful chase ever in the championship, had it happened.
The first proper Roses match occurred in 1867, although the odd fixture had been played before then, and it was so popular that Yorkshire played Lancashire in three matches, and won them all. Overall Yorkshire lead 84-56, with almost half of the 274 championship matches drawn. Lancashire did not do the double from 1893 till 1960, but the Red Rose is ahead in limited-overs competitions.
A T20 Roses match is still the biggest match in the calendar of both counties, whether at Old Trafford or Headingley, having an extra spice because of all the traditions. A batsman might be slightly more careful about getting out cheaply. If not “no fours before lunch” then “no sixes in the first over.”
But what about another fixture, at Scarborough, whatever the format, and during the summer holidays if there is ever a break in the calendar: a County of Origin match, following the model of Australian rugby league when Queensland play New South Wales?
Yorkshire, especially the West Riding, is not producing cricketers like it used to do, but Alex Lees, Billy Root, Matthew Waite and fine seamers like Ben Sanderson, Oliver Hannon-Dalby and Brett Hutton can still be added to their mix.
Lancashire has become more of a nursery than Yorkshire. They claim that 10 per cent of county cricketers grow up in their system. Matt Critchley, Danny Lamb, the two Parkinson brothers, and three current county captains in Haseeb Hameed, Luke Procter and John Simpson learned their ropes in Lancashire. A County of Origin match would be high standard.
The main point is that cricket in the Red and White Rose counties, even if they do not play each other, should continue to bloom and to supply England’s various teams – quite apart from franchise leagues around the world.
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