ROSES hostilities in the Championship will be renewed for the first time since 2002 on Wednesday and an extra edge will be given to the contest because it is the 50th game to be played in the competition between Yorkshire and Lancashire at Headingley.
To mark the occasion, Yorkshire are putting on a small exhibition in the long room on the first day of the match and members' committee representative Tony Vann has been busy helping to organise it.
The first of these Roses clashes at Headingley was in 1893 and the scorebook which was used will be on display along with later scorebooks right up to the method used by the current scorer John Potter, who fills in his own scoresheet as well as recording the match electronically on his laptop.
Also exhibited will be reproduced scorecards of all 49 Roses Championship games at Headingley and the club's statistician Roy Wilkinson has provided written detail on each of the matches.
Lancashire chairman Jack Simmons, the former Red Rose off-spinner, has been invited to Headingley on Wednesday and it is hoped he will bring with him the trophy which Yorkshire presented to Lancashire in 1863 to mark 100 years of Roses cricket and which is usually on display at Old Trafford.
The exhibition will bring back golden memories of Roses battles down the years and none of the games, in my opinion, has been more remarkable than the one in 1978 when Yorkshire won by an innings and 32 runs as early as five o'clock on the second afternoon.
The morning session on the first day was one of the most hectic I can ever remember and certainly one of the most exciting with virtually a thrill every minute. Winning the toss, Lancashire batted first and were bowled out in a mere 27.1 overs for 123 but Clive Lloyd still managed a brilliant half-century from 34 balls, the great West Indian left-hander having to score mostly in boundaries because of a knee injury.
Eight of the Lancashire wickets were claimed by a rampant Graham Stevenson, one of the most naturally gifted players Yorkshire have ever produced, while an ebullient David Bairstow held on to five catches behind the stumps.
There was still time before lunch for Yorkshire to lose openers Richard Lumb and Bill Athey without either of them scoring a run and at 49-5 early in the afternoon Yorkshire looked unlikely to gain a first innings lead.
But Phil Carrick somehow managed to see off the venomous West Indies fast bowler Colin Croft and the Farsley youngster went on to score his maiden century out of a final total of 260.
Lancashire were even more brittle second time around, collapsing to 105 all out with Bankfoot's Howard Cooper grabbing 6-26 and Yorkshire's current bowling coach Steve Oldham bagging the other four.
Not for the first time around that period, the umpires reported the Headingley pitch as being unfit for first-class cricket but the game was still packed with absorbing cricket and there was far more entertainment than in many a present game which lasts for four days and in which hundreds of runs are scored.
Just to add to Lancashire's discomfiture, I would point out that exactly ten years' later, Yorkshire ended a sequence of 12 consecutive Roses draws with another two-day win at Headingley - this time by ten wickets after the extra half-hour had been claimed.
The pitch could not be blamed for Lancashire's demise in this game and there was little hint of a low score when they stood on 114-3, but then Arnie Sidebottom snatched four wickets for as many runs in 21 deliveries as six wickets crashed for 12 and Lancashire were bowled out for 154.
Jim Love top-scored for Yorkshire with 77 but there was no keeping Sidebottom out of the picture and he weighed in with a half-century as Yorkshire gained a first innings lead of 139. Lancashire collapsed for a second time, managing only 156 after Sidebottom struck two early blows with Stuart Fletcher going on to claim four wickets and Peter Hartley three.
Think of Roses matches and you conjure up images of Hutton and Washbrook, Trueman and Statham and other great players born inside the two counties, but overseas players have also left their mark and none more so for Yorkshire than Darren Lehmann (pictured left) whose phenomenal 252 in the 2001 game at Headingley brought Yorkshire their first win over Lancashire in six years.
The Australian left-hander fired off salvo after salvo of audacious shots to all parts of the ground while building up the biggest individual innings in Roses Championship cricket and by the time he was bowled by Glen Chapple he had plundered 35 fours and a six.
Yorkshire won the game by seven wickets and the victory went a long way towards clinching the Championship title for the first time in 33 years.
Let's hope that this 50th Roses game at Headingley also produces a home win and that it turns out to be another important rung climbed on the ladder towards promotion to the First Division.
Updated: 10:41 Saturday, June 04, 2005
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