{"id":633249,"date":"2026-06-11T15:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633249\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T15:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:10:10","slug":"hampshires-ali-orr-half-century-against-surrey-meant-huge-amount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633249\/","title":{"rendered":"Hampshire’s Ali Orr: Half-century against Surrey meant ‘huge amount’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hampshire were able to persuade opener Orr’s boyhood club Sussex to terminate his contract<\/a> a year early before the start of the 2024 season.<\/p>\n

Since then, however, Orr has only played 11 first-class matches, passing 50 twice, including his one century against Durham<\/a> in 2024, and has also struggled with injury.<\/p>\n

He might have hoped for better fortune with the arrival of new head coach<\/a> Russell Domingo last winter, but has still played just two matches in all formats in 2026.<\/p>\n

“I came to Hampshire to play and to win games and make a difference, and it’s obviously frustrating, because you want to play as much cricket as possible,” he added.<\/p>\n

“It’s a professional sport, you come in and out of teams, so hopefully I can take the opportunity and go from there.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely, for me, about being a bit more calmer, and being more confident.”<\/p>\n

Hampshire will visit Orr’s old club Sussex in their next Championship match on Friday, 19 June, and he says his current team will travel there with increased belief.<\/p>\n

“To get a good draw in a big game (at the Oval) was good,” he added. “It was what the team needed. Now we want to go to Sussex and get the win. <\/p>\n

“We’re looking to battle back. We’re not where we want to be, but we’ll get to where we want to be by the end of the year. <\/p>\n

“Hampshire is a big club, a very successful club, and this is not where we belong. It feels like the tide is changing and we are playing better cricket. <\/p>\n

“We’re here to fight, and we’re not just going to lie down and stay at the bottom. We believe we can stay up, and that we can do special things.”<\/p>\n

You can hear ball-by-ball commentary on every County Championship match via BBC Sounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hampshire were able to persuade opener Orr’s boyhood club Sussex to terminate his contract a year early before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-633249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}