Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

century in each innings of a match. As Joe said at the time: ‘It was the only cricketing achievement that the Old Man had over me and I could not take that from him while he was still alive.’ This feat was at the expense of Northamptonshire at Trent Bridge and was also Notts’ first victory of the season. Northamptonshire batted first and were dismissed for 211. Thanks to an undefeated 100 from Joe, Notts were able to declare at 225 for seven. Northants then set Notts a target of 243 in 155 minutes: Joe made a further unbeaten century – 114 in as many minutes – and Notts got home by three wickets with ten minutes to spare. Strangely for a player who scored 83 first-class centuries, this was the only time that Joe scored a century in each innings of a match. The next milestone was the completion of a set of centuries against all the other sixteen counties. Up to this point in his career centuries against Lancashire and Yorkshire had eluded him. Within a week all changed. On 18 June he scored 138 against Lancashire and then in the following match against Yorkshire at Sheffield he made an undefeated 162. Shortly after accomplishing this feat he received a telegram from Emmott Robinson, the former Yorkshire seam bowler, which read: ‘Well played, but tha’ wouldn’t have got it if I’d still been playing.’ There were three further centuries for Notts in 1949. The last was another not out innings, this time 156 against Sussex at Trent Bridge. He had now scored 64 centuries – one more than ‘Old George’ Gunn. There was a further century for H.D.G.Leveson Gower’s XI against the New Zealanders at Scarborough. This turned out to be Joe’s last appearance at the Scarborough Festival 66 and, apart from two more matches for Auckland the following winter, all the rest of cricket until his retirement in 1955 was played for Notts. In the autumn of 1949 Joe returned to New Zealand for a second winter with Auckland. His English form continued and he scored 45 and 78 against Canterbury and 11 and 135 against Otago. 67 Then the blow fell. Early in 1950 the Auckland Cricket Association received a message from MCC indicating that Joe might have infringed his county cricket qualification by playing for Auckland in Plunket Shield matches in the same year as playing for Notts in the County Championship. The message went on to say that ‘it is County Cricketer, 1949-1955 108 66 He was invited to play in the festival against the West Indians in 1950 but had to withdraw because of injury. 67 This was the match in which Bert Sutcliffe scored 355 for Otago, still the highest first-class innings by a New Zealander, so perhaps it was this achievement which drew MCC’s attention to Joe’s involvement.