Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

followed against Leicestershire at Aylestone Road. This time Joe batted for 330 minutes hitting one six (off a no-ball) and only three fours. Despite rain affecting play on the first and last days, Larwood and Voce made light of Leicestershire, dismissing them for 103 and 195 to give Notts a comfortable win by an innings and 53 runs. As we have seen, Carr had promoted Joe to three in the match against Essex. He remained there until Willis Walker returned to the side in July. Joe then moved to fourth in the order, where he stayed for the rest of his career, apart from a number of occasions towards the end of his career when he opened the batting. By 2 June he had scored 413 runs and was averaging 68.83. Understandably his average was to drop as the season went on. On 16 July he scored 80 against Worcestershire at Worksop, which took him past a thousand runs for the season for the first time. Scores of 60 and 84 against Middlesex at Lord’s took his season’s total of runs to 1,817 runs at an average of 40.37. Joe had played in every Nottinghamshire match and he had scored four centuries and ten fifties. Most satisfyingly he had more than doubled his career aggregate. On 17 August his contract was renewed for another three years. He was to be paid a basic annual wage of £124; £2 per week for the 32 weeks of the winter and £3 per week during the 20 weeks of the cricket season. In addition as a capped player he was to be given a further £2 per week. For home matches he was to be paid £9 (£1 deduction) and the necessary rail fare to reach Trent Bridge if the previous match had been away. For away matches he received £11 per match and the rail fare. In 1934 his earnings totalled £505 – not quite wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, but certainly enough to be able to buy his own house and be one of the very few people in the neighbourhood to afford a car, a Hillman Minx. 16 His daughter Helen recalls that they were much better off than the great majority of their neighbours and his son Joe recollects that his mother was well able to do all the ‘housekeeping’ on his father’s winter pay alone. If a match was missed because of a cricket injury he would receive the full home payment for the first match missed. For the next three matches this would decline to two-thirds of the match fee. For a non-cricket injury there would 30 Nottinghamshire and England, 1934-1935 16 At the time, average male earnings in the coal industry were just under £160 per annum, for a fifty-hour week.