The Hampshire League plans to accommodate 303 teams spread across 17 divisions in 2021 – that’s provided the Covid-19 pandemic threat diminishes and the government gives the green light for recreational cricket to go ahead.
The structure, which was due to have been in force this past summer but had to be put on hold, sees a Division 1 and Division 2 at the summit of the pyramid, and beneath them a third division split into north and south sections.
Division 4 is split into three regional leagues – North, South and West – with five district areas comprising Divisions 5 and 6.
Newly promoted trio Compton & Chandler’s Ford, Bournemouth II and Winton feature in Division 1, which includes seven Southern Premier League second teams and St Cross Symondians’ thirds.
Ryde, who swept the board in Isle of Wight cricket this summer, have Vectis neighbours Shanklin among their Division 2 rivals.  The island pair both face the prospect of long mainland hauls to East Woodhay and Shrewton on the Berkshire and Wiltshire county borders, respectively. 
All being well, the 17-week season will begin on Saturday May 8 and end on August 28 2021.
The Hampshire League structure appears at www.hantscl.play-cricket.com/news.

Littleton & West Hill stalwart Chris Tee won’t bowl a cricket ball in anger for another five months or so, but as the long winter nights rapidly draw in he’s every reason to reflect with a warm glow on the bowling milestone he achieved this past shortened summer.
Bowling his left-arm swingers, the youthful 60-year old chalked up his 1,000th wicket in Winchester club cricket – the magical one thousand’s victim being celebrated against Ashford Hill in mid-September.
Remarkably, Chris has kept a record of every match he has played in since making his debut, as a 13-year old, for Sparsholt in 1973, after which he had a short spell with St Cross Symondians and, since 2002, with Littleton & West Hill, where he combines his bowling duties with that of vice-chairman and secretary.
In a successful career, he took 475 wickets in 15 summers at Sparsholt and, after ten years working abroad, returned to Winchester and bagged another 129 victims in a four-year stint playing for the third and fourth teams at St Cross.
“Since joining Littleton & West Hill in 2002, I have taken 401 wickets, so had cause for a double celebration at the end of the season, by which time I had 1,005 victims to my name” he smiled. 
Tee was at Peter Symonds’ Grammar School when he took to cricket and, under the watchful eye of Jon Player, helped the Winchester team win the Hampshire Schools’ CA Altham Trophy at Northlands Road in 1978, his final year there.
Among his 475 wickets for Sparsholt was a career-best return of 7-12 against Cranbury Park on a wet afternoon in May 1976.   Overall, his wickets came at a tidy 15 apiece.
                                                                                               Loft
“Working abroad in Washington DC and later Germany caused me to miss ten whole seasons from 1988, but when I returned from Europe in 1997 the gear immediately came down out of the loft and I was back playing again, this time for St Cross Symondians,” he explained.
“I played at the Green Jackets from 1998 to 2002, bowling my now slow left-arm swinging and turning deliveries. 
“I took 129 wickets for them at an average of just under 18 playing in their third and fourth elevens, quite often opening the bowling especially for the fourths.
“I decided to move on at the end of the 2002 season to Littleton and West Hill as l had known a lot of the people who played there for some time and felt it was a better fit for me personally to play there and so it has proved.
“I have mainly played for the second eleven at Littleton and, again to this day, l am still most often opening the bowling with my slow left arm deliveries. 
 “As at the end of this latest truncated season, l have taken a total of 401 wickets for them at an average of 16.5, with two seven-wicket hauls – 7-56 against Hampton Park in 2008 and 7-21 at Hungerford four seasons ago.
Tee’s 1,005 wickets, which include 25 five-wicket hauls, have been taken at an overall average of 15.2.  
He has bowled 5,151 overs, with 1,021 maidens – and can’t wait for next April to come around so he can don the whites again and bowl a bit more !