The Sussex Cricket Museum Quiz

ESSEX QUIZ: 29 July 2026

QUESTIONS

1. We welcome Essex to this Metro Bank match at Arundel. When was the last time our two counties met in a limited-overs match here?

2. Which players hold the Essex records for most runs and most wickets in limited overs cricket?

3. Where is the Essex ground used for the first-ever radio commentary on a first-class cricket match in England?

4. Which Essex captain won an Olympic gold medal as a middleweight boxer?

5. What was the outcome of Essex’s first encounter with Hertfordshire in limited-overs cricket?

6. Which of the following teams have Essex not played in first-class cricket? Canadians, Combined Services, Jamaica, T.N.Pearce’s XI and South Americans?

7. Who is the Essex player who holds the record for playing most Championship matches as an amateur?

8. Essex won the Bob Willis Trophy in 2020. What was this awarded for?

9. In the sixties and seventies Essex used a mobile scoreboard converted from a furniture van to display match information at the county’s various outgrounds.
   True or false?

10. With which club did Sir Alastair Cook start off his county playing career?

ANSWERS

1. In 2007, in the Friends Provident Trophy, when Essex won by 132 runs.

2. Graham Gooch, who scored 16,576 runs between 1973 and 1997 and John Lever who took 616 wickets between 1968 and 1989.

3. This was at the County Ground, Leyton with Pelham Warner describing play in the match between Essex and the New Zealanders in May 1927. (There had been earlier commentaries on matches in Australia.)

4. J.W.H.T.Douglas, county captain from 1911 to 1928, won the middleweight title in the 1908 London Olympics. His Dad refereed the final bout and this has raised doubts about its legitimacy ever since!

5. They lost in the Gillette Cup by 33 runs at Hitchin in July 1976, all out in 38 overs.

6. South Americans.

7. Percy Perrin, who played 496 matches for Essex in the competition from 1895 to 1928.

8. They beat Somerset over five days in a first-class match at Lord’s in the final of a replacement for the County Championship. The Championship had been abandoned 
   because of Covid lockdowns and a brief replacement competition organized. 

9. True. Because club boards were often small in size, the county first converted a van in 1962 and arranged a replacement when it was damaged by fire in 1971.

10. He played Minor Counties cricket for Bedfordshire in 2002, at age 17, scoring a duck and 67 in his first match.

HAMPSHIRE QUIZ: 18-21 June 2026

QUESTIONS

1. Which Hampshire player was named by Wisden as one of its five Cricketers of the [Twentieth] Century?

2. Where in Hampshire was the first-ever ‘great’ cricket match played, in 1772?

3. Which Hampshire bowler holds the Championship record for taking a hundred or more wickets in a season most often?

4. Who was the Hampshire batsman who, in 1899 - only his second season in county cricket - scored 1,399 runs (including seven centuries) in nine Championship matches at an average of 116.58, but rarely played for the county thereafter?

5. Which Arsenal and England footballer played 16 Championship matches for Hampshire in the 1930s, and was obituarised in Wisden as follows: ‘He married a girl he met at a gasworks dance, not a detail associated with modern football stars of his magnitude.’

6. Who holds the Hampshire record for the most catches by a fielder in a season in the Championship?

7. Which Sussex family has supplied three generations of players to Hampshire and Sussex?

8. Hampshire’s Championship success in 1973 made them the first recipients of what?

9. Cricket is played from time to time on Bramble Bank in Hampshire. Now where might that be?

10. Cricket likes initials. Which Hampshire cricketer has initials which outnumber his surname?

ANSWERS

1. Philip Mead, Derek Shackleton, Robin Smith, Shane Warne.

2. Aldershot, Bishop’s Waltham, Hambledon, Southampton.

3. Tom Goddard, Alec Kennedy, Jack Newman, Derek Shackleton

4. Victor Barton, Charles Fry, Robert Poore, Teddy Wynyard.

5. Johnny Arnold, Mike Barnard, Ted Drake, Henry Horton.

6. George Brown, Gordon Greenidge, Philip Mead, Peter Sainsbury.

7. The Fry Family, The Parks family, The Hill family, The Tremlett family.

8. Championship pennant, Gillette Cup, Lord’s Taverners’ Trophy, a kiss from Susan Hampshire.

9. A forgotten field near Hambledon, a fictional forest somewhere in Hampshire, a sandbank in The Solent, a car park near the Rose Bowl.

10. Edward Ede, Admiral George Lyon, Lord Tennyson, Chaminda Vaas.

GLAMORGAN QUIZ: 12-15 June 2026

QUESTIONS

1. Law 31 refers to appeals to the umpire. What is ‘How’s That?’ in Welsh?

2. The first-ever first-class triple century in Wales was 309* for Glamorgan against Sussex at Rhos-on-Sea. By whom?

3. Plenty of matches have been played by England. But how many first-class matches have been played by Wales? None, ten, sixteen or thirty-seven?

4. All first-class counties have played Championship matches on ‘outgrounds’ away from their headquarters. Glamorgan has played at the outground most distant from its usual home pitch. Where is it?

5. Glamorgan have fielded 16 Davies and only 15 Joneses in the Championship. True or False?

6. Which long-serving, record-holding, Glamorgan bowler started life as a blacksmith’s son here in Sussex and is thought to be the oldest scorer in Championship matches at age 88?

7. Which Glamorgan player, uniquely among county cricketers, has been elected to the Gorsedd of the Bards at the National Eisteddfod?

8. Triple centuries get you into the record books. Who is the only batter dismissed on 299 in Championship cricket?

9. What was special about the umpires overseeing the match between Glamorgan and Derbyshire at Cardiff in 2023?

10. Three individual Welsh counties, apart from Glamorgan, have taken part in the Minor Counties - these days the National – Championship? Which counties are they?

ANSWERS

1. Ardderchog, Bore da, Hwyl fawr, ‘Sut mae hynny’.  (Or so we’re told!)

2. Emrys Davies in 1939, Reg Duckfield in 1936, Matthew Maynard in 1991 or Steve James in 2000.

3. None, ten, Sixteen or thirty-seven.  (The last was at Lord’s in 1930.)

4. Aberystwyth, Llandudno, Llanelli, Rhos-on-Sea.  (Rhos is 187 miles by road from Cardiff.)

5. True.  (They’ve fielded 16 Davieses but only 15 Joneses. But there was also a Gabe-Jones.)

6. Andrew Hignell, Euros Lewis, Jack Mercer or Javed Miandad.

7. Robert Croft, Alan Jones, Maurice Turnbull or Wilf Wooller.

8. David Lloyd, Sam Northeast, Mike Powell, Viv Richards. (Mike Powell was playing for Glamorgan against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham College in 2006.)

9. Both were Welsh-born. Both replaced during the match, first woman umpire in a Championship match, Both umpires under thirty.  (They included Suzanne Redfern, the first time a woman had umpired a men’s County Championship match.)

10. Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire.

LEICESTERSHIRE: 8-11 MAY, 2026

QUESTIONS

1. Colin Ackermann and Wiaan Mulder added 477 runs for the fourth wicket for Leicestershire in the Championship match here at Hove in 2022. How many higher unbroken partnerships have there been in the competition?
2. Also here at Hove, Louis Kimber’s 243 in 2024 – ‘he got into a weird zone’ - is the highest score by a number eight batter in the Championship. True or False?
3. Sussex have won the Championship three times. How often have Leicestershire taken the title?
4. Three towns in Leicestershire have each staged Championship matches on three different grounds. Can you name them?
5. In 125 seasons of Championship cricket, Sussex’s opening batters have ‘carried their bats’ through on innings on 42 occasions. One Leicestershire batter, however, has done this, on his own, 15 times. Who was he?
6. Which Leicestershire player was said by Frances Edmonds as ‘difficult to be more laid back without being actually comatose’?
7. Of which Leicestershire captain was it reported, ‘the decision to appoint as leader a player with no previous experience of county cricket was at the time unique’?
8. Which Leicestershire professional was the first captain to be appointed to lead any county in the Championship?
9. Albert Lord played 121 Championship matches for Leicestershire from 1910 to 1926, including three here at Hove. What was interesting about his name?
10. John Lee, known as Jack, played a single Championship match for Leicestershire at Cardiff in 1947. What’s so special about his name?

ANSWERS

1. None. All higher partnerships were ended with a dismissal.
2. True, though Cecil Maxwell did score 268 against Leicestershire for Sir Julien Cahn’s XI in 1935. (Sussex won the 2024 match by the way.)
3. Three times – in 1975, 1996 and 1998 – all before Sussex got in on the act.
4. They are Coalville, Hinckley and Loughborough.
5. Cecil Wood, who achieved the feat 15 times between 1898 and 1913, including four times in 1911.
6. David Gower, who played for Leicestershire from 1975 to 1989.
7. Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, who captained Leicestershire from 1907 to 1910.
8. Ewart Astill, who captained the side in 1935 when the side finished sixth in the competition.
9. It was a pseudonym. His real surname was Callington, but he was member of a side with a King and a Knight and thought he should join the aristocracy. (Stage names are almost unknown in county cricket.)
10. His is the shortest name of any Championship cricketer, seven letters, alongside Mark Cox (Northamptonshire 1905-1909, 1919) and John Fox (Warwickshire 1922-1928; Worcestershire 1929-1933.)

Questions

1. Who, in 2025, was reported as the Warwickshire club’s reigning karaoke champion?
2. In recent seasons, Warwickshire have played almost their matches in Birmingham, at Edgbaston. Which Warwickshire city has hosted Championship matches at four grounds within its boundaries?
3. Brian Lara’s famous 501 for Warwickshire off Durham at Edgbaston in 1994 took away a Championship record previously held by a Sussex player. Which player and what record?
4. At Edgbaston, 130 years ago this year, Warwickshire sent down 264 five-ball overs in the course of two days trying to dismiss their opponents in a single innings. Who were those opponents?
5. Warwickshire have been official county champions eight times; Sussex just three. So, which of the counties has been last most often?
6. Which Warwickshire player, declared bankrupt in 1887, was released from prison to play in his last Championship match in 1895, his benefit, whose funds were then used to clear his debts?
7. How many Quaifes have played Championship cricket for Warwickshire and how many for Sussex?
8. Only three players have scored a triple century and taken nine wickets in an innings in Championship cricket matches. One of them played for Warwickshire: who was he?
9. Who was the long-serving Warwickshire player whose wickets taken in Championship cricket exceeded by 625 his total runs scored? It's the largest such gap for any player for any county.
10. How many players have Warwickshire fielded in Championship cricket who have been clergymen during their lives. Two, four or six?

Answers

1. Oliver Hannon-Dalby, according to The Cricketers' Who's Who.

2. Coventry, which had 80 matches at the Bull’s Head, The Butts, Courtauld’s and Morris Motors grounds, between 1905 and 1982.

3. In his innings Lara scored 390 runs in a day’s play; this surpassed the 333 scored by K.S. Duleepsinhji for Sussex against Northamptonshire in a day here at Hove in 1930.

4. Yorkshire, who were all out for 887, still the highest innings total in the Championship. (The match was drawn, by the way. At that time declarations were permitted only on the last day of a three-day match.)

5. Well, Warwickshire have achieved it only three times and Sussex eleven, but two of those were before Warwickshire were allowed in!

6. Jack Shilton, who had served as a Warwickshire professional for several seasons before the county achieved first-class status. Later researchers have found he had never qualified to play for Warwickshire; a bit of a rogue!

7. Three have played for Warwickshire, Walter from 1895 to 1901, his older brother Willie from 1895 to 1928, and Bernard (Willie’s son) from 1920 to 1937. Walter and Willie were born here in Sussex at Newhaven. Two have played for Sussex, Walter in 1890 and 1891, before scarpering to Warwickshire, and Frank, who played twice in 1928.

8. He was Frank Foster who scored 305* v Worcestershire at Dudley in 1914 and took nine for 118 v Yorkshire at Edgbaston in 1911.

9. Eric Hollies, who played in 452 Championship matches for Warwickshire from 1932 to 1957. In those matches he took 2,105 wickets but scored just 1,480 runs.

10. Six. These were C.H.A. ‘Tom’ Gaunt (who played in 1920-1922, also a hymnologist); the appropriately named Jack Parsons (1910 to 1934, 300 matches); Edward Pereira (1895 and 1896); William Rice (1920, ‘the only monk to play county cricket’); E.F. ‘Mick’ Waddy (1919-1922, an Australian who had also played for New South Wales); T.H. Watson (1904).