Friends Provident Trophy

It was the first top-level one-day competition to be introduced in English and Welsh cricket, amid concern about falling attendances at County Championship matches in the early 1960s.

The competition was based on the Midlands Counties Knockout Cup experiment of 1962, when Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire played one-innings-a-side matches which each lasted one day. The MCC decided to hold a limited-overs competition (65 overs-a-side) the following year for all first-class counties, sponsored by American safety razor company Gillette. The original title was "The First Class Knock Out Competition for the Gillette Cup".{{cite web|url=http://www.cricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/152491.html|title=Cricket's strongest wind of change|website=ESPNcricinfo|access-date=2 April 2018}}

The first match (which was also retrospectively identified as the first List A cricket match after that designation was developed), was a Preliminary Round match on 1 May 1963 at Old Trafford, Manchester with Lancashire facing Leicestershire. The match ended up lasting two days due to rain. Peter Marner scored the first century and Brian Statham was the first bowler to take 5 wickets in a match.

Sussex were the first winners of the Gillette Cup, beating Worcestershire in the final at Lord's. Norman Gifford was the first "Man of the Match" for a final.

In the inaugural season, the matches were 65 overs per side, with a bowler bowling a maximum of 15 overs.{{cn|date=January 2025}} In 1964, this was reduced to 60 overs with a bowler bowling a maximum of 13.{{cn|date=January 2025}} For the 1966 competition until 1998, the maximum was 12.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

Minor Counties teams first competed in the 1964 season. The competition has been seen as a cricketing version of football's FA Cup (it being said

that "the B&H was always the League Cup final to the Gillette/NatWest's FA Cup"),{{cite web|url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/page/312335.html|title=A Brief History/Benson & Hedges Cup|publisher=ESPNCricinfo|access-date=12 May 2022}} with Minor Counties, Ireland and Scotland playing against the First Class Counties in the first round. Most of the time, the established teams beat the part-timers, but very occasionally, favored teams would lose. Between 1963 and 2005, there were 15 upsets, including: Durham (at that time still a minor county), the first in 1973, versus Yorkshire; Hertfordshire, on two occasions, beating Essex in 1976 and winning a bowl-out versus Derbyshire in 1991; and Herefordshire overcoming a Middlesex side featuring Andrew Strauss in 2001.{{Cite web|url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/8629/scorecard/103766/herefordshire-vs-middlesex-3rd-round-cheltenham-&-gloucester-trophy-2001|title=Full Scorecard of Herefordshire vs Middlesex, Friends Provident Trophy (Gillette Cup / NatWest Trophy / C&G Trophy), 3rd round – Score Report |work=ESPNcricinfo}} However, the majority of the time, the first round was an opportunity for county sides to put up very high scores against or easily bowl out Minor Counties opposition.

One of the most famous matches in the competition was the 1971 Gillette Cup semi-final at Old Trafford, with David Hughes of Lancashire coming out to bat at 8:45 pm (before any floodlights) and scoring 24 in one over to beat Gloucestershire. That Lancashire team won the tournament three seasons in a row from 1970 to 1972.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

In June 1973, Durham became the first minor county to defeat a first-class county in the competition, when they beat Yorkshire by six wickets in round one. They then became the first minor county to defeat two first class counties, when they defeated Derbyshire at the same stage in 1985. This was the catalyst for the successful campaign that saw Durham gain first-class status in 1991.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

File:Start of NatWest Trophy final 1987 - geograph.org.uk - 5217191.jpg final between Northants and Nottinghamshire at Lord's]]

In 1981, the National Westminster Bank took over the sponsorship of the competition from Gillette. That year's final finished in a tie, with both sides scoring 235. Derbyshire claimed the trophy from Northamptonshire by losing fewer wickets (Derbyshire 6 to Northants 9).{{cn|date=January 2025}}

Other last-ball finishes in the final occurred in 1984 when Middlesex beat Kent,{{cn|date=January 2025}} in 1985 when Essex beat Nottinghamshire,{{Cite web|url=https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/46/46440.html|title=Scorecard of Essex vs Nottinghamshire, NatWest Trophy|website=Cricket Archive}} and in 1993 when Warwickshire beat Sussex.{{cn|date=January 2025}} There was a notable finish too in 1987 when Nottinghamshire's unlikely victory over Northamptonshire was engineered by Richard Hadlee in his last season with the county.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

The tournament was always the more prestigious of the two "full length" one-day cup competitions.{{cn|date=January 2025}} The other was the Benson & Hedges Cup, which was abolished in 2002 and replaced with the Twenty20 Cup. At a time when county cricketers' exposure on television was limited, the final of the Gillette Cup/NatWest Bank Trophy was a relatively high-profile opportunity for some to make a case for national selection, especially as it often fell in early September, just before the announcement of an England winter tour party. Thus strong performances by Roland Butcher in the 1980 final,{{Cite web|url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/gillette-cup-england-1980-368558/middlesex-vs-surrey-final-368559/full-scorecard|title=Middlesex vs Surrey|publisher=ESPN}} and Geoff Cook in 1981, may have assisted their subsequent selection and Test debuts.{{cn|date=January 2025}} The strong performances of then young cricketers Angus Fraser and Mark Ramprakash for Middlesex in 1988 certainly raised their profiles.{{Cite web|url=http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1988/ENG_LOCAL/NWT/KNOCK-OUTS/MIDDX_WORCS_NWT-FINAL_03SEP1988.html|title=Final: Middlesex vs Worcestershire|publisher=ESPN}} Conversely, surprise was expressed in 1990 when Phillip DeFreitas was initially overlooked for selection for the winter Ashes series, it being suggested at the time that he "surely booked his place on England's winter tour of Australia with an astonishing eight-over opening burst, which reduced Northants to an unbelievable 39 for five" in the final.{{Cite web|url=http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1990/ENG_LOCAL/NWT/LANCS_NORTHANTS_NWT-FINAL_01SEP1990_MR|title=Lancashire wins NatWest Trophy final|publisher=ESPN}}

Other notable individual performances included a brisk out-of-character century by Geoff Boycott in the 1965 final, and the domination of the 1979 final by the West Indies pair Viv Richards and Joel Garner, who helped Somerset to their first major trophy a few months after helping West Indies to win the World Cup, also at Lord's.{{Cite web|url=http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1970S/1979/ENG_LOCAL/GLTE/KNOCK-OUTS/NORTHANTS_SOMERSET_GLTE-FINAL_08SEP1979.html|title=Northants vs Somerset, Gillette Cup Final|publisher=ESPN}} Another West Indies international, Alvin Kallicharran, completed the first double century in the tournament in 1984, in a tie in which he remarkably also took six wickets.{{Cite web|url=http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1984/ENG_LOCAL/NWT/WARWICKS_OXON_NWT_04JUL1984.html|title=Warwickshire vs Oxfordshire|publisher=ESPN}}

The necessity of aiming to complete a scheduled 120 overs in a day (130 when the tournament began) necessitated some early starts. End of season early-morning conditions by the time of the final often favoured the team fielding first, who usually triumphed in the 1980s and 1990s. A rare exception occurred in 1996, when Lancashire bowlers Glen Chapple and Peter Martin triggered a remarkable collapse by Essex.{{Cite web|url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/national-westminster-bank-trophy-1996-419346/essex-vs-lancashire-final-419380/live-cricket-score|title=Essex vs Lancashire, Final|publisher=ESPN}}

In 1999, the number of overs was cut to 50 per side to give English and Welsh cricketers more experience of playing matches the same length as One Day Internationals.{{cn|date=January 2025}} In line with One Day International cricket, teams played in coloured clothing from 2005.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

The competition was revised into a league format from 2006. The eighteen English and Welsh first-class sides, plus Scotland and Ireland, were split into two groups of ten by geographical location known as the North and South Conferences. Matches were 50 overs per side, gaining two points for a win, one point for a no result and no points for a loss. Once the league positions were decided, the top teams from each Conference competed for the trophy in a final at Lord's. In the 2007 season this involved a semi-final knock-out stage, the winner in each conference playing the runners-up in the other.

File:Bath rec cricket.jpg: Somerset v Middlesex]]

The league structure was revised in 2008 as the twenty teams were split into four groups of five. Each team plays the other in the group home once and away once, with the top 2 counties in the group going into the quarter-finals.{{cite web|url=http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/media-releases/2008-fixtures-published,15546,EN.html|title=2008 fixtures announced – Media Releases – News – ECB|website=ecb.co.uk|access-date=2 April 2018}}

The competition was played in the first half of the cricket season with the final taking place in August. The other main domestic one-day competition, the Natwest Pro40 League (formerly "Sunday League"), was latterly played during the second half of the season.

In August 2009, the ECB announced that from 2010 there would be one 40-overs per innings tournament replacing both the Pro40 and the Friends Provident Trophy. This along with the English County Championship and the Friends Provident t20 (a revised form of the Twenty20 Cup), would be English cricket's three domestic competitions.Andrew McGlashan, Andrew Miller [http://www.cricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/422403.html English game dumps 50 overs cricket], 27 August 2009, Cricinfo. Retrieved on 27 May 2010.

{{See also|List of the competitive honours won by county cricket clubs in England and Wales}}

Gillette Cup

NatWest Trophy

C&G Trophy

Friends Provident Trophy

• 7 wins: Lancashire
• 5 wins: Gloucestershire; Sussex; Warwickshire
• 4 wins: Middlesex
• 3 wins: Somerset; Yorkshire; Essex; Hampshire
• 2 wins: Kent; Northamptonshire
• 1 win: Derbyshire; Durham; Nottinghamshire; Surrey; Worcestershire

First class counties with no wins: Glamorgan and Leicestershire

• County Championship – the first class cricket competition in England and Wales.
• Pro40 – the one day league competition.
• Twenty20 Cup – the Twenty20 format competition.

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.cricinfo.com/db/NATIONAL/ENG/TROPHY/ Gillette Cup / NatWest Trophy / C&G Trophy 1963–2004], Cricinfo, retrieved 19 November 2006.
• [http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/media-releases/friends-provident-sponsor-one-day-competition,11528,EN.html Friends Provident back Trophy], ECB media release, retrieved 8 February 2007

• [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/article688268.ece Caught in Time: Lancashire win the Gillette Cup, 1975 – The Sunday Times, July 16 2006]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070518045648/http://www.friendsprovident.co.uk/cricket/ Friends Provident Trophy website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070315213236/http://www.ecb.co.uk/domestic/friends-provident-trophy/ ECB Friends Provident Trophy website]
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/4500887.stm Last chance for the giant-killers – BBC Sport 30 April 2005]

{{Friends Provident Trophy seasons}}

{{Cricket in England}}

Category:English domestic cricket competitions

Category:Sports leagues established in 1963

Category:Recurring sporting events established in 1963

Category:Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2009

Category:List A cricket competitions

Category:NatWest Group