Famous Cricketers No 40 - Neil Harvey

103. Victoria v Western Australia, Melbourne, February 27, 28, March 2, 3 (Victoria won by an innings and 128 runs) c J.K.E.Munro b C.W.Puckett 95 447 131 188 104. Australian XI v Tasmania, Hobart, March 7, 9, 10 (Australian XI won by an innings and 74 runs) c K.E.Schmidt b E.E.Rodwell 148 510 - - - - 202 1 0 3 0 234 105. Combined XI v Australian XI, Launceston, March 12, 13, 14 (Australian XI won by ten wickets) b A.K.Davidson 49 262 4 0 44 0 469 c and b R.Benaud 81 245 - - - - 41-0 106. Australian XI v Western Australia, Perth, March 19, 20, 21 (Match drawn) c R.B.Sarre b R.B.Strauss 48 359-4d 179 c C.W.Puckett b R.B.Strauss 13 74-3 260-9d SEASON’S AVERAGES Batting and Fielding M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50 Ct Tests 5 9 0 834 205 92.66 4 3 - Sheffield Shield 6 10 1 378 95 42.00 - 3 4 Other matches 5 8 0 447 148 55.87 1 2 - 1952/53 16 27 1 1659 205 63.80 5 8 4 Career 106 159 15 7540 205 53.36 22 35 55 Bowling O M R W BB Ave Tests 8 3 9 1 1/9 9.00 Other matches 10 0 68 0 - - 1952/53 (8-ball) 18 3 77 1 1/9 77.00 Career (8-ball) 90.7 7 } 393 9 2/11 43.66 (6-ball) 10 3 1953 - Australians in England At Leicester in the first match of the tour Harvey reached his century in three hours and then made the next hundred in as many minutes although even he was outpaced by A.K.Davidson (63) in a stand that added 117 in sixty-five minutes. Altogether Harvey hit twenty-seven fours in his 202* an innings that ended a sequence where he scored 1389 runs (106.84) in fifteen innings. On a wicket at Stoke-on-Trent that was unfit for a first-class game, some balls reaching chest height and others scuttling through low, he played magnificantly for two and a half hours for his 109 (thirteen fours) made out of 182. He followed this with another hundred at Old Trafford against Lancashire where the first fifty took him two hours but the next took him only seventy minutes. Suussex were the next to suffer. In the first innings he reached 82 in 126 minutes with eleven fours before being brilliantly caught and bowled by A.S.M.Oakman; in the second he and A.L.Hassett (108*) shared an unbroken stand of 240 in two and three-quarter hours. Against Hampshire he completed a run of 540 in five innings by scoring 109, his fifty coming in sixty-five minutes and his hundred in 135 minutes with thirteen fours. By the time the first Test arrived he had scored 917 runs at an average of 101.88. The run came to an abrupt end in the Test when he registered his first duck in Test cricket in the first innings and only contributed two runs in the second, dismissed both times by A.V.Bedser, who in this series and the previous series in Australia took his wicket ten times. After the Test he started another run of success which brought him 928 runs (84.36) in eleven innings. He reached his 1000 runs for the tour during his 59 in the Second Test. Batting at number eight against Gloucestershire at Bristol he came in with Australia 136-6. He and J.H.de Courcy (97) then added 159 in 100 minutes with Harvey scoring his 141 in 167 minutes with twenty-two fours. He ended the game by taking 3-9 with his medium-paced off-breaks. In the game at Northampton he just missed his century before lunch being 96*; his fifty was reached in 58 minutes and when he was finally dismissed yards down the pitch trying to hit G.E.Tribe straight for six he had hit eighteen fours in two hours. The third century in 17