Summer of ’63: the year that gave us sex, the Beatles … and one-day cricket

A ccording to Philip Larkin, “Sexual intercourse began in 1963”. So did one-day cricket but, disappointingly, there was no mention of the Gillette Cup in his poem Annus Mirabilis. He did mention the Beatles’ first album, though, and the lifting of the ban on the DH Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It was all happening, as the excitable Bill Lawry might have said.

“Everyone was having a good time – the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street fashion,” remembers David Lloyd, back then a 16-year- old clubbie at Accrington who was mixing it with top overseas players and waiting for his chance in the Lancashire second XI. “But cricket was still very traditional and a bit aloof from general society.”

That was all about to shift. “It was the start of cricket itself changing,” says David Tossell, author of the forthcoming history of limited-overs cricket, One Day at a Time. “For 60 years up to that point the game had remained much the same. That summer paved the way for all the innovations that have come since.”

For decades there had been talk of introducing single-innings, knockout contests into the county game but “the die-hards always had their way,” according to Wisden. The immediate post-war boom in attendances had waned and – not for the first or last time – county clubs needed to freshen up the product to fill the coffers.

Following a trial run involving Midlands clubs in 1962, the new competition kicked off on 1 May 1963 at a damp Old Trafford. On the day that Mandy Rice-Davies, protagonist of the Profumo affair, was appearing in court in London, Lancashire were making the most of their 65 (yes, sixty-five) overs to post 304-9 against Dickie Bird’s Leicestershire in the preliminary round. Bad weather pushed the