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 •
Sussex County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1948–1951 •
Warwickshire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1931–1933, 1949–1968 •
Worcestershire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1907, 1948–1951 •
Yorkshire County Cricket Club, second XI, played 1901–1910, 1921–1974 ==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 Gillette Cup/NatWest Trophy/Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy 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.
Benson & Hedges Cup 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. After 1980, as part of the same move that brought Ireland into the Gillette Cup, Scotland joined the Benson & Hedges Cup, cutting the Minor Counties to a single team. Over the next 19 seasons until the format was changed again after the 1998 competition, the Minor Counties won six out of 75 matches, with a further four "no-results". Both the Minor Counties' first two victories, in 1980 and 1981, were by the margin of three runs, against
Gloucestershire and
Hampshire respectively. At no stage did the representative team reach the next phase of the competition, the knock-out stage. In 1999, the Benson & Hedges was recast as a "Super Cup" for only the top eight first-class teams; another change in format in 2000 saw three leagues of six first-class counties set up. This lasted until the competition was abandoned in favour of the new Twenty20 Cup after the 2002 season, and the Minor Counties did not figure in this set-up. ==References==