Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

his premonition was indeed true and that his father had died that evening, on 2 April, sitting in his chair at home in Fishers Street, Nuncargate. Thus a somewhat unsatisfactory tour came to an end. It cannot be too strongly reiterated that Joe simply did not get the chances which a batsman of his experience and ability merited. Apart from some of Swanton’s comments in The Daily Telegraph , which indicate that Joe was out of form in the very early matches, the only other criticisms of his batting come from Bill Bowes, in his autobiography Express Deliveries, and Clif Cary in Cricket Controversy . Bowes hinted at unreliability and suggested that Joe found the fast bowlers too much for him. This is hardly borne out by the facts. Joe was dismissed by three opening bowlers, Freer, Murfett and Miller; by five slow bowlers, Ian Johnson (twice), O’Dwyer, Clark, Dooland and Tribe; and twice by the medium-pacer Toshack. Any criticism of Joe’s shortcomings in batsmanship must be tempered by the fact that he simply did not have the opportunities to get himself into top form because of Hammond’s badly thought-out selection policy. Joe seems to have been written off very early on, seemingly being regarded as a professional twelfth man, a specialist outfielder. Cary said that he should never have been selected for the tour and that he appeared to be out of touch, but as we have seen, he hardly had the chance to be in touch in the first half of the tour. Cary, though, was not a regular member of the Press Box, being based in Sydney. * * * * * Notts began the 1947 season on 14 May when Worcestershire visited Trent Bridge. Joe started well and by the time the team for the First Test against South Africa was selected, he had scored 509 runs and was averaging 56.55. It was of no avail. Tom Dollery of Warwickshire was chosen for the No.5 position. He was unsuccessful and was promptly dropped for the Second Test at Lord’s, being replaced by Charles Barnett who had not been seen in England colours since the Leeds Test of 1938, when he had opened. Without doing very much Barnett kept his place for Manchester and Leeds. To be fair to him he was next man in while Edrich and Compton had partnerships of 370 at Lord’s and 228 at Manchester. When Edrich was unfit to play at The Oval, Joe might 96 Post-War Years, 1946-1948