Yorkshire County Cricket Club
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Yorkshire County Cricket Club is a county cricket club based at Headingley in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
The club was founded on January 8, 1863 in the Adelphi Hotel, Sheffield. From 1891 the club's headquarters moved to Headingley, although 'out grounds' in Hull, Sheffield, Bradford, Middlesbrough and Harrogate were used with great success until recent years. Yorkshire currently play nearly all their home matches at either Headingley in Leeds or the east coast holiday town of Scarborough, although a move to a new purpose built stadium near Wakefield has been mooted on several occasions.
Yorkshire were the dominant force in the County Championship until the Second World War, often dismissing lesser sides without recourse to a third day's play. The immaculate Herbert Sutcliffe formed a famous opening partnership with Surrey great Jack Hobbs for England, while Wilfred Rhodes and George Hirst rank with the finest all rounders the game has ever produced. A youthful Len Hutton scored a then world record 364 against Australia at the Oval and returned after the war, despite a serious arm injury, to become England's first professional captain and prove himself perhaps the most complete opening batsman since Hobbs.
After Surrey's unbroken hegemony in the fifties, the sixties saw a new Yorkshire team emerge dominate the first class game. Obdurate opener Geoff Boycott, canny off spinner Ray Illingworth, ever present keeper Jimmy Binks, belligerant left hander Brian Close, hard hitting 'Jack' Hampshire and 'Fiery' Fred Trueman combined in one of the great county teams. Personal fueds between these strong personalities were perhaps inevitable and Yorkshire's dressing room less than harmonioius, particularly when Geoff Boycott captained an acrimonious team through the barren years of the seventies.
More recently exuberant paceman Darren Gough and Manchester born Michael Vaughn have proved major stars for county and country alike. In clinching the match against Glamorgan at Scarborough in 2001 the club won its first County Championship since 1968 under the flinty captaincy of locally born David Byas, who has since returned to the club as director of cricket. Yorkshiremen are regarded as fanatical in their support of their native county, and in cricketing matters especially. The famous 'Roses' matches against Lancashire are second only to Anglo-Australian tests in terms of history, tradition and competitiveness.
Yorkshire CCC was famous for insisting that its players must have been born within the County of Yorkshire, a rule not dropped until 1992, and Yorkshire's prospects of playing success suffered through the seventies and eighties as other counties raced to sign major overseas stars. This rule was criticised as a manifestation of racism as many of the large Asian population of Yorkshire were made ineligible to play; Sachin Tendulkar was the first Asian to play for Yorkshire, but he played as an overseas player. It was not until May 2004 that Ajmal Shahzad became the first British-born Asian to play for Yorkshire. Many Yorkshire lower league clubs are accepted as either all-Asian or all-white. Other overseas players to have worn the famous white rose cap include Australian middle order batsmen Michael Bevan and Darren Lehmann and West Indian Richie Richardson.
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