National Counties of English and Welsh cricket

In the early years, the results of matches against teams that did not play enough games to qualify for the final table were included in the records of those who did.

Four further Minor Counties have since been granted first-class status – Worcestershire in 1899, Northamptonshire in 1905, Glamorgan in 1921 and Durham in 1992.

An example of a professional who played regular Minor Counties cricket was the England bowler Sydney Barnes.

[3] The Minor Counties Championship was substantially reorganised in 1983 when the present two-division regional structure was introduced, along with a one-day knock-out competition.

The first Minor Counties side played a three-day match at Stoke-on-Trent against the South African cricket team that toured Britain and Ireland in 1912 and that took part in the Triangular Tournament.

The first and third days of the match were washed out by rain; the Minor Counties' total of 127 relied heavily on 51 from Norman Riches, later Glamorgan's first first-class captain, and the three South African wickets that fell for 22 runs by close of play on the second day were all taken by Durham medium-pace bowler Alfred Morris, whose only other first-class match was for "An England XI" against the Australians later that summer, when he took seven further wickets for a team composed largely of Test players.

Minor Counties' next outing as a first-class side was again against the South Africans, this time in 1924, but it was the third match, the 1928 game at Exeter against the West Indies that cemented the fixture in the calendar.

After following on, Minor Counties won the match by 42 runs, thanks largely to 154 by Aaron Lockett, a batsman from Staffordshire (and later a first-class umpire) and six wickets for Edward Hazelton of Buckinghamshire.

[1] The five, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Durham, Hertfordshire and Wiltshire, were not seeded in any way, and Durham were drawn at home to Hertfordshire, beating them easily, and thereby becoming the first Minor County side in the cup's second round (in which they lost heavily to the eventual winners, Sussex).

The Minor County representation in this competition remained at this level until 1983, by which time it had been renamed the NatWest Trophy.

This lasted until the competition was abandoned in favour of the new Twenty20 Cup after the 2002 season, and the Minor Counties did not figure in this set-up.