Double Headers

75 4-5-6 Sept England XI v Commonwealth XI Torquay Drawn Points of interest: •The game at Folkestone in 1934 was Jack Hobbs’ last first-class match, ending a career that had begun in 1905. The Players’ captain, he scored 24 and 18, opening in both innings with Charlie Barnett of Gloucestershire. •As an example of the geographical imprecision of some of the team names in these games, three players from the surely-southern county of Gloucestershire (Charlie Barnett, George Emmett and Tom Graveney) played for the North side at Hastings in 1948. In the same match Worcestershire’s Roly Jenkins played for the South, and his county colleague Reg Perks for the North. The North team contained only one player from an unequivocally northern county – Nigel Howard (Lancashire). I said “at least” four instances a couple of paragraphs ago, because – as indicated – the naming of Festival XIs seems to have been somewhat flexible. There are as many as eight other instances where the ACS listing of first-class matches, along with that on the CricketArchive website, gives the same name to two simultaneously-playing sides, but Wisden does not. As the table of these matches below shows, the differences between the alternative names are trivial. There is almost certainly no indisputably ‘correct’ name for the teams concerned, so you can either regard these as bona fide double-headers, or as near-misses, according to preference. The team-names in normal type in this table are as given by ACS and CricketArchive; names in italics are variants as given in Wisden . Season Play dates Fixture Venue Winners 1902 1-2-3 Sept Gentlemen v Players Scarborough Drawn 1-2-3 Sept Players / XI Players of England v Australians Harrogate Aust 1904 5-6-7 Sept North v South Scarborough Drawn 5-6-7 Sept South / South of England v South Africans Hastings Drawn 1905 31 Aug , 1-2 Sept England XI v Australians Bournemouth Aust 31 Aug , 1-2 Sept England XI / An England XI v Lancashire Blackpool Tied (scores level) 1947 3-4-5 Sept South / South of England v South Africans Hastings SA 3-4-5 Sept South v North Kingston South 1947 6-8-9 Sept North v South Scarborough Drawn 6-8-9 Sept South / South of England v Sir PF Warner’s XI Hastings Warner Other instances in the British Isles