News, Manchester
Two key members of the Lancashire side that dominated one-day cricket in the 1970s will have sections of the county’s Old Trafford ground named after them later.
Sir Clive Lloyd and Farokh Engineer will be honoured during the Test match between England and India, for whom Engineer was capped 46 times.
Future West Indies captain Lloyd and wicketkeeper batsman Engineer joined Lancashire in the 1960s, shortly after English counties were allowed to sign overseas players.
The batting panache and verve of both men dovetailed perfectly with the new fast-scoring limited overs format of the game.
A stand next to the club’s media centre, known informally as the B Stand, will have its upper tier named after Lloyd with the lower named after Engineer.
Lloyd, 80, and Engineer, 87, became folk heroes in Lancashire in the 1970s when the Red Rose county became known as the “kings of one-day cricket”.
The same crowds who cheered the likes of George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton at Manchester United in the winter brought football-style chants to cricket when Lloyd and Engineer batted at the other Old Trafford in the summer.
The team won three successive Gillette Cup finals and two successive Sunday league titles with Lloyd scoring a memorable 126 in the 1972 Gillette Cup final against Warwickshire.
Engineer was an experienced Test player when he joined Lancashire in the same season the Old Trafford committee had nearly agreed terms with West Indies legend Sir Gary Sobers.
Lloyd was also a Test player and had spent a year as a professional with Haslingden in 1967 and 1968.
Engineer played 175 matches in nine seasons for Lancashire, scoring 5,942 runs. Behind the stumps, he took 429 catches and recorded 35 stumpings.
For Lloyd, 30 of his career first-class centuries were amassed for the Red Rose in his haul of 12,764 runs in 219 matches over 18 seasons.
Two other parts of the ground are named after fast bowlers.
The former pavilion end was renamed after the county’s pace-bowling great and England’s leading Test wicket taker James Anderson in 2017.
The former Stretford End was renamed after ex-Lancashire and England fast bowler Brian Statham in 2011.
