Earliest cricket Cricket had probably reached Northamptonshire by the end of the 17th century and the first two references to cricket in the county are within a few days of each other in 1741. On Monday 10 August, there was a match at
Woburn Park between a Bedfordshire XI and a combined Northants and Huntingdonshire XI. Woburn Cricket Club under the leadership of the
Duke of Bedford was on the point of becoming a well known club. On Tuesday 18 August, a match played on the Cow Meadow near Northampton between two teams of amateurs from Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire is the earliest known instance of cricket being played in Northamptonshire county.
Origin of club On 31 July 1878, the official formation of Northants CCC took place at a meeting in the George Hotel,
Kettering based on an existing organisation that dated back to 1820. The 1820 date, if it could be verified, would make Northants the oldest club in the present-day
County Championship. The club came to prominence in the
Minor Counties Championship during the 1890s as, between 1900 and 1904, the bowling of
George Thompson and William East was much too good for almost all batsmen at that level. The county applied for first-class status in 1904 and was promoted the following year when it joined the County Championship. They played its inaugural
first-class match
versus Hampshire CCC at Southampton on 18, 19 & 20 May 1905 when making its County Championship debut.
Stepping up to first-class Although Thompson and East proved themselves to be bowlers of high class, a weak batting line-up meant that the team remained close to the bottom of the championship table until
Sydney Smith arrived in 1909. After three years in the middle of the table, Northants surprisingly improved to finish second in 1912 and fourth in 1913. Thompson, Smith and William "Bumper" Wells formed one of the strongest attacks in county cricket at the time, whilst Smith and Haywood were the county's best batsmen. Thompson and Smith finished playing after World War I and, during the inter-war period, Northamptonshire were regularly one of the weaker championship sides. This was exacerbated when
Vallance Jupp declined due to age and, despite the arrival of
Nobby Clark, a young left arm fast bowler from
Huntingdonshire who burst onto the scene at the age of 20 in 1922 with 20 wickets at an average of 17.10 and
Fred Bakewell, an exciting batsman who regularly exceeded 1000 runs a season, Northamptonshire could only finish above second from last four times between 1923 and 1948, finishing last every year from 1934 to 1938 and enduring a run of 99 matches from 14 May 1935 to 29 May 1939 without a single championship victory, a record that has never been beaten. Things got worse for Northamptonshire during this time when Bakewell's career ended due to a broken arm in a car crash that also resulted in the fatality of teammate,
Reginald Northway.
The post-war recovery After the Second World War, things could only get better for Northamptonshire and they started by recruiting widely from other counties and countries, bringing in
Freddie Brown from
Surrey; the Australians
Jock Livingston,
George Tribe, and Jack Manning; the New Zealander
Peter Arnold; and the
Cambridge University opening bat and leg-spinner
Raman Subba Row. Brown joined as
captain in 1949, and led the team to sixth place in his first season after previous years of disappointment. Under the new leadership of
Dennis Brookes (a stalwart batsman for over 20 years), finished second in 1957, their best finish for 45 years. The club's outstanding players at that time were wicket-keeper
Keith Andrew and fast bowler
Frank Tyson. Subsequently, the club has seen mixed fortunes. The club has had intermittent success in
one-day competitions, but it has still not won the County Championship, although second place was achieved in each of 1957, 1965 and 1976. Nonetheless, it has included several famous players qualified for England, including the South African-born batsman
Allan Lamb; fast bowler
David Larter; the hard hitting opener
Colin Milburn, whose career was cut tragically short by an eye injury sustained in a car crash; the reliable batsmen
David Steele and
Rob Bailey; opening batsman
Wayne Larkins; and all-rounders
Peter Willey and
David Capel. Several notable overseas players such as
Matthew Hayden,
Curtly Ambrose,
André Nel,
Kapil Dev,
Mike Hussey,
Sarfraz Nawaz,
Mushtaq Mohammad,
Anil Kumble,
Dennis Lillee 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. More recently,
Lance Klusener and
Monty Panesar have been notable players. Northants have recently been criticised for the number of
Kolpak players in the team, but for the 2009 season there were only three in
Andrew Hall,
Johan van der Wath and
Nicky Boje, and only one in 2013 in Hall.
White ball success Northamptonshire have played in the domestic
T20 Blast competition since its inaugural season in 2003. They play as the Northants Steeelbacks, taking their nickname from the
Northamptonshire Regiment. Under the captaincy of
Alex Wakely they first won the competition in 2013, defeating Surrey by 102 runs (D/L). This was the first white ball trophy won by the county since 1992. After finishing runners up to Lancashire in the 2015 edition, the Steelbacks once again won the competition in 2016, defeating Durham by 4 wickets. ==Honours and achievements==