Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

said, ‘he tended to be individualistic and uncommunicative; worse still he didn’t seem to be part of the side.’ Typical of this was using a Jaguar – given to him as a present – to drive himself and Rupert Howard, the Manager, from game to game while the rest of the team went by train. Compton went on to make the damning judgement that ‘we seemed to go into each Test without a plan and without a sense of urgency.’ In his diary of the tour, Paul Gibb made a number of references to a lack of organisation over net practice. This lack of planning clearly extended to selection policy. In all there were 17 first-class matches in Australia. Ikin and Yardley played in 16, Compton and Washbrook 15, Hutton 14, whereas Joe appeared only eight times. Thus by the time Bill Voce sent down the first ball in post-war Anglo-Australian Test cricket on 29 November, Joe had only played against Western Australia and Victoria, scoring 98 runs in three innings, had been twelfth man against South Australia and Queensland and had taken no part at all in the matches against the Combined XI at Perth, the Australian XI in Melbourne, and New South Wales. There had been two appearances in minor matches. Swanton considered that the selectors had chosen the Test batsmen by the time of the New South Wales match which began on 15 November. Thirteen players were selected for the First Test at Brisbane – Hammond, Hutton, Washbrook, Edrich, Compton, Ikin, Yardley, Gibb, Bedser, Wright, Voce, Smith and Joe. Smith was omitted and, as expected, Joe became twelfth man. It was an unfortunate match for England who, having allowed Australia to make 645, were twice caught on a sticky wicket and were dismissed for 141 and 172, thus losing by an innings and 332 runs. Joe, however, retained his sense of humour. In Cricket Campaigns Norman Yardley recalled that in the first thunderstorm there was a huge amount of hail which covered everything and that Joe suddenly called everyone to the pavilion window saying, ‘Look at that’. There was a huge chunk of ice about six inches square, but it had not come from the skies. Joe had taken it out of the dressing room ice box and surreptitiously put it out of the window. Before the Second Test, at Sydney, there was a minor match against a Queensland Country XI at Gympie on 7 and 9 December. Playing in his first match for over a month, Joe made 64, the top score for MCC. It made no difference: apart from dropping Gibb in favour of Evans, the selectors chose the same thirteen players for Post-War Years, 1946-1948 93