Posted by Every year, 10 to 20 bowlers take 40 wickets or more in the first division of the County Championship and every year, three or four of them are the exact same Hampshire players. This cannot go on. This will not go on.
In 2021, in his first year with Hampshire, Mohammad Abbas took 41 wickets at 15.87. That same year, his team-mate Keith Barker took 41 at 18.41 – and at this point, we’re going to stop giving the averages, because you already get the idea. Another Hampshire bowler, Kyle Abbott, outdid both of them, taking 46.
In 2022, Abbas took 50 wickets, Barker took 52 and Abbott took 58.
In 2023, Abbott took 44, Liam Dawson took 49 and Abbas took 53.
Last year, Dawson took 54 and Abbott took 55.
Looking back on all this, we figured Hampshire’s bowling has been sufficiently unchanged for so long that it must surely have made its nature known to even the summarising software that tries to pass itself off as ‘artificial intelligence’ these days.
The well-known chatbot we asked summed up the Hampshire attack of recent years as ‘a blend of youth and experience’.
A generous assessment would be to say that these things are relative and so maybe 35-year-old Liam Dawson could pass as a “young talent” (the chatbot’s words, not ours) when set alongside Abbas (35), Abbott (37) and Barker (38).
A more accurate take would be that the Hampshire attack has long been a blend of experience and experience which has been growing ever more experienced with every passing season. Fortunately, there’s no real ceiling on experience. There’s always more to be had – experiences such as hormonal changes, memory loss, presbyopia and Warfarin, for example. (So much experience. Experience in every joint. Some mornings we feel so experienced, it’s a struggle to get out of bed.)
One thing that can stunt experience, however, is if a big Mohammad Abbas shaped chunk of it buggers off to Nottinghamshire. (Hopefully his departure is nothing to do with Hampshire’s new owners and the de facto ban on Pakistan cricketers in the IPL.)
Every organisation strives for progress but in county cricket this is again a relative thing. Hampshire have done well out of standing still these last few years when plenty of their rivals have regressed.
Inertia now seems a lofty ambition given Abbas’s departure. Is it possible? Well we did hear they were having a word with Tim Southee (36), who definitely has the potential to keep them static.
Yes, we are aware this follows on from a crowd-pleasing piece about pensions insurance. You, dear reader, are owed a little tonal redress. Maybe our next county piece will focus on some of the young scamps scamping around and exactly what scampishy scampery they might get up to in the coming season.
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That’s an interesting take on Hampshire’s new owners. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.