Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

appearance on the cricket field since his illness at the end of the 1934 tour of England. MCC batted first and early on the second day were all out for 371. Joe went to the wicket with the score at 93 for one and batted for 166 minutes, scoring 90 with 7 fours before being caught by Mervyn Waite off the bowling of Frank Ward. South Australia were dismissed for 322. Bradman batted for 23 minutes before being lbw to Sims for 15. MCC went for quick runs and set South Australia 224 to win, but they were dismissed for 187, thus losing by 36 runs. Bradman top-scored with 50. This was his only innings of 50 or more which did not contain at least one boundary; it lasted for 105 minutes and included 32 singles. MCC moved on to Melbourne. The match against Victoria was rain-affected and ended in a draw, with Joe making 34 and eight not out. This was followed by the first defeat of the tour at Sydney, New South Wales winning by ten wickets. Joe was top scorer in both innings with 77 out of 260 and 37 out of 163. Queensland were then defeated by an innings and 106 runs. Joe had his first failure of the tour, contributing three to a total of 558. Prior to travelling on to New Zealand, MCC returned to Sydney for a match against an Australian XI captained by Hans Ebeling, which consisted of Rigg, Mudge, Robinson, Marks, Kippax, Bensted, McGilvray, Easton, White and Chilvers. With the national side on tour in South Africa, it was not a powerful team, despite the presence of Kippax, who was playing in the last match of his distinguished career, and Rigg and Ebeling, who had also played Test cricket. Robinson was to appear for Australia the following summer. Mudge later joined Sir Julien Cahn’s XI, while White toured England in 1938 without appearing in a Test Match, apart from a lengthy time fielding as a substitute in The Oval Test. McGilvray, of course, became the renowned cricket broadcaster. Winning the toss, MCC made 411 before declaring for the loss of nine wickets. The innings was dominated by Joe who scored 230 not out. This was his first double-century in first-class cricket and was, by a long way, the highest score of his career so far. He batted for 368 minutes, hitting a five and 19 fours. The MCC innings had begun badly with five wickets – those of Parks, Smith, Barber, Human and Holmes – falling by the time the score reached 95. Joe and James Langridge added 150 for the sixth wicket. Joe and Lyttleton then put on 74 for the seventh wicket and, after Powell With MCC to Australia and New Zealand, 1935/36 40