Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

This gave him a match aggregate of 174: Wisden felt that he had confounded his few critics. After the match ended in a draw, Joe returned to Trent Bridge and came down to earth, making just one run against Glamorgan. Despite this, the runs began to flow. By the end of the season he had hit three double-centuries, a second Test century, won the Lawrence Trophy for the fastest century of the season, represented the Players against the Gentlemen, appeared in the Scarborough Festival, and been invited to join Lord Tennyson’s team for a tour of India. It was indeed a remarkable second half of the season. After the one against Glamorgan Joe’s sequence of scores was 70 and 12, 214*, 52 and 4, 39 and 27, 11 and 4, 58 and 11, 0 and 146, 57, 97 and 126, 7 and 62, 266, 103, 51 and 243, 61* and 77, 4 and 38, 9 and 52 – a total of 1,901 runs at an average of 73.11. In four weeks’ cricket between July 28 and August 31 he scored 1,296 runs with the Bradmanesque average of 108.00. 34 Indeed, one newspaper headline at the time described him as ‘Britain’s Boy Bradman’. Nevertheless, his father still took pains to point out that ‘Young Joe’ had yet to score two separate hundreds in the same match! This sequence of innings covered the Second and Third Tests. At Manchester Joe was dismissed for 58 and 11. In the first innings he helped Hutton – in the process of making his first Test century – add 128 for the second wicket. The Cricketer felt that he started uncertainly and that he played too much off the back foot before unleashing some superb strokes, including a straight drive to the top of the sight screen. In the Third Test, at The Oval, he made 103. This was considered to be a better innings and the critics felt that he was on the verge of becoming a great batsman. Then there were the three double-centuries. The first was made against Somerset at Trent Bridge. Batting first, Notts made 519 for five, Joe’s contribution being an undefeated 214 which contained a six and twenty-two fours. The first century took 120 minutes and he reached the second double-century of his career in 220 minutes. Wisden recorded that he gave difficult chances at 52 and 164. Sadly it was not enough to win the match as rain prevented Regular England Player, 1937-1939 65 34 Joe scored 1,150 runs in first-class matches in the calendar month of August 1937, an aggregate exceeded for this month only by W.G.Grace, who scored 1,278 in 1876, and by Wally Hammond with 1,281 in 1936. His last innings of the month, 77 at Bristol, saw him reach 50 in only fifteen minutes.